This is a "Gonna Make a Change," which takes a look at the odd evolution that comic book series used to make. You see, nowadays, when a comic book series wants to re-tool, comic book companies simply cancel the book and start a brand-new series (heck, change a creative team and books will often reboot). In the old days, however, comic book companies felt that they had too much capital invested in the higher numbers and wanted to avoid starting over with a new #1. So we got to see some weird changes over the years.

Today, I take a look at the time World's Finest Comics was briefly a Superman team-up series...withOUT Batman!

By 1970, Batman and Superman had been teaming up regularly in World's Finest Comics for over 15 years.

However, for a couple of years before that, Batman had taken over Brave and the Bold and it had become a Batman team-up series...

And so new World's Finest Comics editor Julius Schwartz felt that World's Finest Comics would work better as a Superman team-up series, as well. They announced the change in the letter column for World's Finest Comics #196...

But it didn't kick in until World's Finest Comics #198 (a scheduling snafu)...

With a brand-new letter column title that again explained the change...

Due to the changeover, Superman spent the 200th issue of World's Finest Comics teaming up with Robin instead of Batman!

Batman showed up two issues later to express his displeasure with the changeover...

Finally, though, just two years into the change (the book was bi-monthly), the last Superman team-up occured with the Man of Steel and Vigilante...

The next issue brought in a new editor, Murray Boltinoff, and a new writer (Denny O'Neil had been Schwartz' main guy, while Boltinoff brought in Bob Haney), and they kicked off a return to the Superman/Batman team-ups with the introduction of their KIDS!

Haney explained the changeover in a text piece in the book...

Two issues later saw the first traditional Batman/Superman team-up story...

Amusingly, that wouldn't be it for Julius Schwartz and Superman team-ups, but that's a story for another day!

Okay, folks, if you have suggestions for comic book series that went through notable format changes that you'd like to see me spotlight, just drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!