The Meltzer and Snyder stories are the best of the bunch when it comes to the tribute stories in this anniversary issue, with the Snyder piece opening up a mind-boggling number of potential Batman stories. The Tomasi story also isn't bad, mostly due to Bertram's homage to Miller's art in the original "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" mini-series. Regarding the other stories, I would've preferred that the Snyder and Layman stories be given the 24 pages spent on them and the pin-up pages. Both these stories felt constrained by the need to share the issue with all these other stories. Moreover, Layman's Gothopia story is somewhat ruined by the inclusion of the other stories, since the whole premise of it is that something is different in Gotham. Given that the other stories also explore "different" Gothams, if you will, it reduces the impact of the changes that we see in Gothtopia. At the very least, this issue definitely wasn't worth the insane $7.99 that DC had the nerve to charge for it, particularly for another anniversary issue within the last year. If you're a faithful reader of "Detective Comics," I'd just read the Snyder and Gothopia stories in the aisle of the comic-book shop and call it a day. For the price alone, I'm giving it two stars, since it set a pretty high bar that it didn't meet.
** (two of five stars)
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