Joel Schumacher might have taken the comic notes of Batman and Batman Returns too far to the extreme in Batman Forever and particularly Batman And Robin, but that doesn't mean Burton's approach to the material should be immediately discarded as inferior by proximity as a result. His more gentle humour, which bordered on the absurd at times like the Joker's dancing entrance in his parade was suited to the comic book source, without ever wandering into the silly camp territory of either 1960s Batman or Schumacher's vision, and in hindsight it worked better than Nolan's poe-faced seriousness. There is not only very little relief in Nolan's universe, there's only no room for it at all, and thus the few quips that exist like Batman's so that's what that feels like - feel completely perverse. In not occasionally tipping his cowl to the absurd, by the end of The Dark Knight Rises it felt like Nolan was never acknowledging it in a way that has worked so well for the MCU so far.
