The new comic-book adaptation that won’t have you reaching for the kryptonite. Here’s why Messrs Dominic Cooper and Joseph Gilgun are set to be your new TV heroes in Mr Seth Rogan’s reworking of Mr Garth Ennis’s graphic novel series.

In an entertainment landscape already awash with superheroes and rubber suits, another story lifted from the pages of a comic might not seem the most radical proposition. Preacher, however, is a cut above. The brutal, black-hearted comedy landed this week – on AMC in the US, and Amazon in the UK – in a screeching whirl of sick, surreal irreverence. Here are six solid reasons to tune in.

Several big hitters – including the director Mr Sam Mendes – have previously attempted to bring the dark and controversial 1990s comic to the screen. A decade ago, actor and comedian Mr Seth Rogen began adapting Preacher with Mr Evan Goldberg, his frequent collaborator on films including Superbad and the notorious The Interview, and former Breaking Bad writer Mr Sam Catlin. It wasn’t an easy endeavour. “I couldn't believe how profane and perverse and psychotic the whole thing was,” Mr Catlin says of the 66 comic books he was tasked with turning into a script suitable for broadcast.

Preacher’s premise centres on Jesse Custer, played by Mr Dominic Cooper, a vicious criminal now living as a man of the (impeccably cut) cloth in Annville, the dusty Texas town in which he grew up. He brings with him a seriously slick, all-black aesthetic, infinitely more pirate than priest. “They were always trying to get me in really baggy things, but I fought hard for his look,” says Mr Cooper. “My argument was that cowboys all wear trousers that are tight around the crotch.” He drew the line at a faithful colour scheme, however. “In the comic, he wears white, but white jeans would get grubby in no time in Texas.”

Jesse’s attempts to go straight are shaken up by the arrival of his ex-girlfriend Tulip – the badass Bonnie to his Clyde, played by Ms Ruth Negga, who soon brings down a helicopter with a home-made bazooka. “Tulip’s vagina is the only conventionally feminine thing about her,” says Ms Negga. “But she’s not imitating masculine qualities; that’s who she really is. She’s entirely her own person, and that’s what is inspiring about her.”

Cassidy, the scene-stealing, booze-swilling Irish vampire, has a gleeful propensity for chowing down on anything, from ears to entire cows. “He is a complete sociopath, but a lot of antiheroes are; Batman is a fucking psychopath,” says Mr Joseph Gilgun, who plays the hungry but loyal immortal. “He is a man of violence and debauchery, and he’s unapologetic about it. But he’s also just sticking up for his friends.”

With a lead cast made up largely of Britons, training was required to pull off a dialogue dripping with Texan drawl. Mr Rogen reportedly also advised Mr Cooper to binge-watch Texas-set football drama series Friday Night Lights in preparation. But casting American actors instead was apparently not an option. “That’s what you do in TV: you just cast British people,” says Mr Rogen.

Jesse inadvertently finds himself inhabited by a mysterious entity of enormous spiritual magnitude, which – having already caused numerous other religious leaders to spontaneously combust – grants him the power to influence other people; God, meanwhile, is portrayed as a far less potent force. Is Mr Rogen at all concerned about backlash? “A few angry tweets don’t even register on my Richter scale anymore,” he says. “Unless a world leader is condemning me, I don’t consider it a controversy.”

Episode 1 of Preacher is available now on Amazon Prime Video