Superheroes make for great pop psychology with their masks and secret identities and whatnot. It lets all us armchair Freuds go on about psychological scars and whether the real mask is the one they wear or the person who they pretend to be. Bruce Wayne's a particularly good case for this because, man: seeing your parents shot will do things to you.

In keeping with today's media-saturated age, Bruce has designed an elaborate persona to fool everyone. And the irony is, it's not the one everybody thinks. The mask, the gravelly voice, the pointy ears; that's the real guy. Okay, maybe a little less with the gravelly voice…but still, the actual Bruce Wayne is the one swooping across rooftops and beating up the bad guys. This is his mission, after all, and the dark, angry part of his soul finds a nice balance there between harming the guilty and protecting the innocent. This is who he was born to be.

The disguise, on the other hand, is the one everyone thinks is Bruce Wayne. The jerk. The smug, self-satisfied rich kid who shows up in those "look who's drunk" articles in the tabloids. The guy who buys the restaurant rather than adhering to their dress code. That guy is the disguise: the one he puts on to deflect suspicion, and who ensures that the world has no idea who the real Bruce Wayne really is.

And let it never be said that it doesn't work. Seriously, if someone told you that Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian had a secret life as a master detective and a scourge of criminals, someone who had literally saved the world on a regular basis, you'd think they were nuts. But Bruce pulls it off, and in the process gives us an interesting twist on the whole secret identity thing. Everything's backwards here, and when the real guy is the one who has to wear a mask, you don't wonder why people like the Joker just go nuts.