Dr Who has a built-in refresh switch with the protagonist’s habit of regenerating. Gives the audience a chance to respond to someone new, buff up the franchise for the contemporary audience, as is happening at the moment with Matt Smith. But what do you do when a superhero is arguably in need of a new approach? The readers can be very dogmatic about their relationship with the man in the costume…is it possible to maintain that rapport while reinventing it?

That’s the challenge Grant Morrison took on when developing his take on Batman. He’s one of the great icons of all time — does he even need a rebranding? Maybe, maybe not. But when the results are as captivating as Morrison’s version of Batman & Robin, you’ll get curious about why more comics aren’t as fun as this, regardless of whether there’s been some reinvention going on.

I’d checked out some of Morrison’s earlier work on Batman, but it didn’t seem to have the vibrancy that I typically associate him with. All of that culminated in an apparent death of Batman, for which DC also pulled in big gun Neil Gaiman to do a special issue that rapidly appeared in an overprived hardback, leaving me feeling that the dominant theme of this renewed focus on the Caped Crusader is money.

Something that characterises Morrison’s outlook though is a delightful lack of cynicism, and all this time working on Batman has resulted in a very fine take on Batman & Robin. In the absence of Bruce Wayne — who the characters believe dead but I can inform worried readers is merely way back in time, working his way back to the present via a series of one-off comics set in different eras — former Robin Dick Grayson has stepped into his mentor’s Batshoes. He’s a different sort of Batman, a younger man unencumbered by the darkness that runs through Bruce’s life. Accompanying him, Bruce’s son Damien, who as his name suggests is a bit of a handful: he’s Bruce’s son, brought up by his mother, herself the daughter of one of Batman’s arch enemies, R’as al Ghul.

What this means is an interesting new dynamic: a Batman who’s unsure he’s worthy of the mantle, and a Robin who’s convinced he could do the job better. Ah, the arrogance of youth: little sod is only ten years old, but he’s already worked out how to make the Batmobile fly. If I was Batman I’d be worried about sarin gas booby traps in the Bat-toilet.

All of this is brought to amazing life by artist Frank Quitely, the greatest of Morrison’s collaborators. He’s there for the first three issues of the Batman & Robin comic, which comprises the first half of the just-released hardback, and will return in the future. The other half is illustrated by Philip Tan, who is perfectly good, but a more conventional artist than Quitely, whose sense of three dimensional space and how to utilise it to create compelling images is extraordinary, and combined with a fundamentally European style ensures his comics look outstanding.

A hero is defined by his villains, and Morrison comes up with a doozy in Professor Pyg, a psychotic surgeon who creates his own flunkies through grafts, transplants, and other operations you’d not get on the NHS. He and his retinue speak the lingo of travelling circus folk, which gives rise to some lively dialogue, and Pyg’s insanity gives his words an extra twist. Pyg, I’m sure, is named after Pygmalion, in which Henry Higgins turns flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady — Pyg does something similar, only with more scalpels than in the George Bernard Shaw version of the story.

Fine entertainment, Batman & Robin is all about kinetic thrills, and there’s not much more to it than that. Except given that Morrison is the writer you’ll also get interesting characters and quality dialogue. How long it will last I have no idea, given that Bruce Wayne is on his way back. But while it lasts, enjoy what’s on offer.