Go see 'Batman Begins.' NOW. That's an order.

It's a damn great movie, and plays closer to the source material than any other Batman movie (aside from the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated series).


Here's what I identify most with the character Bruce Wayne/Batman:


His sense of loss, and the fact that he pretty much had to raise himself.


Granted, my parents are alive and were NOT gunned down ruthlessly in the back alley of a movie theatre in a sprawling metropolis. I'm from a rural upstate New York town with less than 26,000 people.


However, I was pretty much a latch-key kid. My parents worked their asses off to put a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table. My mother worked nights for a while, even after my little sister was born, and I barely remember her being around except for Saturday mornings. My dad would come home and drown himself with alcohol, sometimes violently so. By the time I was five, I wasn't sure what I was afraid of most; going to school, or my father coming home from work. If I ever changed the channel wrong, or put the spoon down wrong, I'd get thrown across the room and beaten. He sobered up eventually, but it wasn't soon enough.


I'm 26 years old, and I barely know who my parents are. Whenever I go home to visit, I'm transported back to 1986, to an eight year old boy who doesn't know who to trust. The feeling wears off after a few minutes, but it's still damned strange to go through all that.


Another one of the themes explored in 'Batman Begins' is fear, and how we cope with it, and turn it into something positive…or negative.

How does one cope with being constantly afraid for the first 13-15 years of life?


I'll give you a hint:


Not too well.