What Happened To The Joker After The Dark Knight?

Batman fans — as well as the Joker — were left hanging in the climactic third act of Christopher Nolan's 2008 blockbuster "The Dark Knight," which marked the Clown Prince of Crime's final scene in the writer-director's blockbuster film. Metaphorically, audiences were left wondering what happened in the narrative sense to the Joker (Heath Ledger) after Batman (Christian Bale) left his captured nemesis for the Gotham City Police Department. In the literal sense, the Joker was left swinging from a building's scaffolding for the GCPD to apprehend after Batman lassoed his right ankle by using the hook and wire from his Grapple Gun.

Sadly, Heath Ledger's death prior to the release of the film prevented future appearances by his iteration of the Joker, which left Nolan the authority on explaining what happened to the villain before, if not during, the events of "The Dark Knight Rises."

In a 2012 interview with Empire (via Digital Spy) Nolan explained that it would have been in poor taste to incorporate the Joker into "The Dark Knight Rises" narrative, so out of respect for Ledger, he simply avoided doing so. "We're not addressing the Joker at all [in the film]," Nolan told Empire. "That is something I felt very strongly about in terms of my relationship with Heath and the experience I went through with him on 'The Dark Knight.' I didn't want to in any way try and account for a real-life tragedy. That seemed inappropriate to me. We just have a new set of characters and a continuation of Bruce Wayne's story, not involving the Joker."

Among the new characters Bruce Wayne-Batman encounters in "The Dark Knight Rises" are cat burglar Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman (Anne Hathway), and the back-breaking strongman Bane (Tom Hardy), who serves as the film's chief nemesis. "The Dark Knight Rises" also includes callbacks to two "Batman Begins" bad guys — Dr. Jonathan Crane-Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and Ra's ah Ghul (Liam Neeson) — and introduces the latter villain's daughter, Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard), to the fold. Essentially, every major villain that appeared in "The Dark Knight" trilogy appears in the film, with the exception of Heath Ledger's Joker.

But while Nolan purposefully omitted the Joker in the movie, the official novelization of "The Dark Knight Rises" did, however, include a brief mention of the character and where he possibly is. Displaying a scan of a passage from the novelization, MTV (via Comics Alliance ), the story explains that Blackgate Prison, located on a small island in Gotham Harbor, was now the location of the city's maximum-security penitentiary — and its inmates were transferred there from Arkham Asylum. "The worst of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate," the passage in the novelization read. "Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure. Not even Selina."

In the film, of course, one of Bane's biggest actions was the liberation of all of Blackgate's inmates — including Selina — with no indication whatsoever that the Joker was ever among them or that he was left behind at Arkham. So, barring the discovery of some old script notes from "The Dark Knight" or excised material from "The Dark Knight Rises" that gives fans further clues about his location, the exact whereabouts of the Joker after "The Dark Knight" will only exist in the ether.