I don't think that it was a brilliant idea to have Joker responsible, or necessarily the only way to present the story on screen, I just think it was useful to the storytelling for that particular movie. Sam Hamm wasn't necessarily wrong. He also protested Vicki being let into the Cave. I think Hamm was a great writer for the movie partly because he was obviously a lover of the Batman comics. Ironically, Burton might have been a great director for the project because he didn't know them as well or hold them as precious, so he could fiddle with it and make it work for the version he was presenting.
My favourite Batman comics artist is Kelley Jones. His style is so vivid and imaginative. It's also hyper-stylized and takes huge risks pushing the character designs the way he does. He could have slavishly stuck to the other Batman artists who did more standard comic art, but he didn't, and I think he did something great. Burton was the same way.
The unwritten rule is written in the comics a few times. I'm not sure when it first showed up, but I bet it was early on. Somewhere around Batman #1 when he was transitioning out of Det-Com, Bats' editors were thinking, "This is for kids," and they ordered up a young sidekick for children to relate to, and I'm guessing shortly thereafter (if not concurrently) they pulled back on the violence and murder.
I do think that the character having lines like "I don't kill" does help us understand how Bruce justifies his vigilantism and differentiates himself from the criminals he fights. He has lines he won't cross on principle because he has to tell himself that narrative to keep his crusade justified. That said, I'm not against having a Batman who will cross that line, or bend some of his rules.
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