Removed this from under the X-Men/Days of Future Past entry:
Also Bishop. And Cable. And everyone from the "Age Of Apocalypse" arc. Marvel really likes this trope.
Bishop is just a badass from the future, not a badass future version of someone who isn't a badass in the present. The Age of Apolcalypse characters are from an alternate present, not the future. Cable's a borderline case because he did briefly exist as a character in "modern day" comics, but it was only as an infant, and he got taken to the future and came back as an adult - he's not a future version of a character, he's a character who went to the future, grew up, and came back (and he was created as just a badass from the future, and later retconned into the grown up version of Cyclops's infant son).
Feel free to reinstate that example if the consensus is that "Badass from the future with no corresponding character in the present" is as valid an interpretation of this trope as "Badass future version of a present nonbadass."
Removed this from under the X-Men/Days of Future Past entry:
Bishop is just a badass from the future, not a badass future version of someone who isn't a badass in the present. The Age of Apolcalypse characters are from an alternate present, not the future. Cable's a borderline case because he did briefly exist as a character in "modern day" comics, but it was only as an infant, and he got taken to the future and came back as an adult - he's not a future version of a character, he's a character who went to the future, grew up, and came back (and he was created as just a badass from the future, and later retconned into the grown up version of Cyclops's infant son).
Feel free to reinstate that example if the consensus is that "Badass from the future with no corresponding character in the present" is as valid an interpretation of this trope as "Badass future version of a present nonbadass."