The Joker’s Whereabouts During ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Finally Revealed

Where Art Thou, Joker?

The Dark Knight left a lot of people wondering what had become of Batman after he took the fall for the death of Harvey Dent. Christopher Nolan pieced everything together and tied up all the loose ends in the chilling conclusion to his epic Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises.

There were a lot of new faces in the movie (like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake and Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle), but a lot of familiar ones returned to watch Bane burn Gotham City to the ground. Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow came back to play judge while Liam Neeson also made an appearance as Ra's al Ghul (even though he was merely a figment of Bruce Wayne's imagination.)

But throughout all this, where was the Joker? It's understandable that he was left out of the movie given what happened in real life (with all respect to Heath Ledger), but story-wise, what ever happened to the insane criminal mastermind?

People assumed that he was transferred to some other prison or that he found a way to escape before Bane and his crew got to Gotham.

But Greg Cox, the author of The Dark Knight Rises: The Official Novelization finally reveals the Joker's fate and puts all questions to rest, once and for all.

Now that the Dent Act had made it all but impossible for the city’s criminals to cop an insanity plea, it (Blackgate Prison) had replaced Arkham Asylum as the preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons. 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. Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure. Not even Selina.

Well, there you have it. Case closed.