While others collect comics, Bruce Wayne collects father figures, which include Michael Caine’s Alfred Pennyworth, Liam Neeson’s Henri Ducard and Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox.

Another contender for father-figure, however, is Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox. Playing Q to Bale’s James Bond, Fox just happens to have the right set of gizmos for Batman’s campaign against crime. Or maybe Bruce Wayne is simply clever enough to adapt, for crime-fighting purposes, whatever Lucius has developed. Freeman’s Lucius is cool and imperturbable, another steady anchor in Bruce’s life.

Outstanding in the role of nervous sibling is Gary Oldman’s Lieutenant Jim Gordon. With a moustache directly out of Miller and Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One comics mini-series, Oldman becomes the “one good cop” that Batman needs on his side in order to be most effective in cleaning up Gotham.

Echoing the movie’s theme of fear is the Scarecrow, Dr. Jonathan Crane, played by Cillian Murphy. With his use of toxins to induce fear and terror in his victims, he’s the little kid pulling the wings off a fly writ large.

Katie Holmes plays assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes, the grown-up version of Bruce’s childhood best friend (a character created specifically for the movie). Unfortunately, Holmes is given the thankless task of having to state the themes. While Ducard’s spouting of portentous truisms works in the context of cruel-for-your-own-good movie mentors from time immemorial, when Rachel is burdened with such lines, they sound fatuous. Happily, by the film’s end, her dialogue is written with more subtlety, lending more dimension to the character.

A notable missing element in the film is the sense that Bruce might actually be missing and mourning a maternal figure. The film — like the Star Wars movies — is primarily, of course, about fathers and sons. But a boy needs his mom, too. Is there fear that a kid who might mourn and want to avenge his murdered mother would be a turn-off to audiences? Would Bruce Wayne be considered a sissy if he did that?

So how does Batman Begins stack up? Well, it’s a wild, fun ride and the truest live-action incarnation of the character ever done. In the ranking of superhero movies, I’d say it’s somewhere behind the Spider-Man movies — which will most likely remain the gold standard of these types of films for a good long while — and on a par with the excellent X-Men movies. Everything else places well behind this group, so that’s pretty good company to be in. The movie may be called Batman Begins — but it’s a movie franchise that won’t be ending for a long, long time.

Danny Fingeroth was the longtime editorial director of Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man line and consulted on the 1990s Fox Kids Spider-Man animated series. He has written hundreds of comics stories, and written and developed characters and scripts for animation, most recently episodes of 4Kids Ent.’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Fingeroth is also the author of Superman On the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society (Continuum), and puts out Write Now! Magazine, the premier publication about writing for comics and animation, through TwoMorrows Publishing. He teaches Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels and moderates seminars with Graphic Novel creators at New York University and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Fingeroth is a frequent guest on radio and television (including E! Ent. Television, the Today Show and NPR’s All Things Considered), commenting on comics and on popular culture in general. His op-eds and comments on superheroes and pop culture have appeared in many newspapers and websites, including the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, USA Today and cnn.com.