During this age in batman comics a lot of change were made not just to the art style of the comic book with the character design getting darker and more realistic. But also to the character of the comic with Bruce Wayne (Batman) becoming a more darker character who was prone to brooding and was so focused on stopping crime that he didn’t even trust his own allies. There were still issue that boarded on zany and campy themes to them but the series was starting to head in a darker direction with the joker who before had been more of a criminal prankster was becoming more of an insane madman who had a tendency to kill everyone will trying to get batman to break his no killing rule by getting him to kill him. The reason characters were starting to get darker was because a lot of fans of batman were now in their late teens and had grown beyond then need to have what they read censored at even turn. So the comic was again retooled so that it target teenager instead of children.