I hear this third- or fourth-hand, so it might be incredibly inaccurate and thus unfair, but I heard this Bendis quote that went something like this: “Marvel is about the character, DC is about the cape.” Mark Waid is the writer that best disproves this thesis. Not by simply negating it, by just saying DC is about character, but by proving that the whole statement is a false dichotomy, an invalid opposition. It’s not a question of Characters vs. Capes. It’s about characters who wear capes. A great thing about the superhero comic is that its characters are, to a large extent, defined by what they DO, not just by what they talk about. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bendis and his method has proved time and time again to be an excellent vehicle for characterization. But what Waid does is a different beast entirely. He fuses plot and character in such a way that they seem inseparable. In this issue, Jay and Bruce are always active, always progressing the plot, and everything they DO says something about their respective characters. And Waid’s insights are so f###ing insightful. Listen to the latest Waid Word Balloon interview. He is so smart and so good for DC. He’s a continuity nerd who doesn’t just memorize every fact,  he realizes the potential of each fact. I’m really f###ing pissed at whoever took him off this book.
    Not to get too nerd, but this issues proves the dialectical possibility of this book. Dialectics is the philosophy best articulated by Hegel and Marx, which, to summarize and vastly oversimplify, says that things are defined in their opposition: In X vs.Y, not only do we produce Z, we learn new things about X and Y. In B&B #13, Jay is X and Bruce is Y and the issue is Z.
I didn’t say anything about Jerry Ordway. He’s really good, he does emotions really well and pretty subtly, which is an incredible skill in a genre as melodramatic as superhero comics. And he tells a story really well, which is very impressive considering how much story Waid packed into his script.
Great, great issue. Done-in-one, no need to have bought the previous issues. There’ll probably be issues left at your LCS. Buy it! You won’t regret it!