A new Batman descends onto movies screens. Courtesy of Double Negative. All images © 2005 Warner Bros. Ent. All rights reserved.

With those words, Bruce Wayne defines just what makes Batman different from Spider-Man, Superman — and from you and me.

Most of us would like to think that what we do is less important than who we believe we are. Life often makes us compromise our ideals and do things we would rather not have. We tell ourselves we’re good people, but do things in our personal or professional lives that hurt others, even when we’re trying not to.

That very contradiction is what makes a character like Spider-Man so relatable. He tries hard, but messes up. Peter Parker’s whole Spider-Man career is based on him believing he messed up. He didn’t stop the burglar who went on to murder his beloved uncle when he could have.

But Batman, as incarnated by Christian Bale in director and co-writer Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman Begins (opening June 15 from Warner Bros.), does not believe that who he is “underneath” is important. For this driven character, Bruce Wayne is the disguise, Batman — the man of action — is the real person. His campaign against crime is the thing he lives for — and that motivates his actions. And actions are, to him, all that counts.

This is what he says, at any rate. Of course, under the toughened exterior is a little boy even more damaged, and at an earlier age, than Peter Parker. The child Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins is not unlike that other young Bruce — Banner — in Ang Lee’s exploration of superhuman childhood trauma, Hulk.

“What I wanted to do,” explains Nolan in the production notes, “was tell the Batman story I’d never seen, the one that the fans have been wanting to see — the story of how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman.”

According to Nolan: “There is no one definitive account of Batman’s origins, but throughout the interpretations of his character over the years, there are key events that make Batman who he is and make his story the great legend that it has come to be. There were also a lot of very interesting gaps in the mythology that we were able to interpret ourselves and bring in our own ideas of how Bruce Wayne and Batman would have evolved specifically.”

Superheroes are at their core metaphors for human emotions and conflicts. The Hulk is about anger. Spider-Man is about coming to terms with responsibility. Superman is about coming from somewhere else and fitting in. And Batman has always been about anger and regret channeled as a force for justice. The current “back to basics” approach of so many superhero movies — from the X-Men films, to the Spider-Man movies, to, now, Batman Begins (DC Comics/Warner Bros.’ modern foray into the pool) — resonates with those primal metaphors, telling tales of pathos and passion, angst and agony, glory and victory, in a straightforward, undiluted manner. Superheroes enable us to journey into a world where powerful protectors use force in our name to, paradoxically, defend and advance a free society, while cathartically dealing with our deepest fears and highest hopes.

That’s a lot to ask of a guy in a bat-suit.