World's Finest Comics #181

World's Finest Comics #181 (On Sale: October 22, 1968) has a great, gritty Superman/Batman cover by Irv Novick. This is the first cover using the Superman and Batman figures flanking the World's Finest logo,

"The Hunter and the Hunted" is by Cary Bates, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Superman receives a warning from the super-computer in his Fortress to leave the Earth for 24 hours. Before leaving he convinces Batman to do the same. Superman hides out on the distant world of Toron, while Batman travels back in time to 1896 where he gets a job as a circus performer. Despite the fact that the heroes heeded the computer's warning, a hunter from the oval planet Orr is able to track them down and take them to his home planet.

Superman and Batman are legends on Orr and hailed as the founders of that world. The inhabitants want to keep the heroes on their world forever. Superman eventually realizes that the planet is actually the future Bizarro World and they have been mistaken for Bizarro #1 and Bizarro-Batman. The heroes then begin acting like Bizarros which upsets the Orr inhabitants. Superman and Batman are kicked off the planet, which returns to its future time period. The square Bizarro World, which had been displaced in time while Orr was in the present, is restored.

The back-up Bizarro story, "The Origin of the Bizarro World" is by John Forte, Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye. When an experimental duplicator ray was used on Superman, an imperfect duplicate known as Bizarro was created. A Bizarro duplicate of Lois Lane was also created to keep Bizarro company. The couple left Earth and founded Bizarro World, a planet populated by duplicates of themselves created with an imitator machine. The Bizarro planet was changed into a cube shape, and the Bizarros adopted a code to do the opposite of all Earthly things.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.