Who is Joseph Gordon-Levitt in ‘Dark Knight Rises?’

He’s Robin!

He’s the Riddler!

He’s the next Batman!

Want my wild-ass guess? He’s the next Batman.

Since last year, online speculation has been steadily rumbling about who Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Surely the explanation — Gotham City police officer John Blake — is only the start of this character’s story.

But surely that can’t be the whole story?

We know that “Dark Knight Rises” touches on some of the themes from the “Knightfall” comic book series. Bad guy Bane (Tom Hardy) is there, of course, and we’ve seen indications that Bane does real physical damage to Batman/Bruce Wayne, just like in the comics. Christian Bale is seen walking with a cane in the movie.

So in the “Knightfall” comics storyline, Bane breaks Batman’s back and puts him out of commission for months. In the interim, Robin, Nightwing and other heroes fill in. A relatively new character introduced, Azrael, even assumes the identity of Batman for a while but goes over the edge before he’s stopped by the returning Bruce Wayne.

So could Gordon-Levitt be playing Azrael, or an Azrael stand-in?

What makes me think that’s likely is that Christopher Nolan has been very intent on grounding his award-winning and ticket-selling Batman movies in the “real world” So much so that Warner Bros. was reluctant to make a “Justice League” movie for fear of irritating the director.

Since “Dark Knight Rises” completes Nolan’s take on the character, Warner Bros. is likely to reboot the character in a couple of years … with someone else besides Bale playing the character.

But which character? After all, who says Batman has to be Bruce Wayne?

Why not John Blake as the avenging angel turned dark knight?

I certainly don’t have any inside info, but a buddy of mine in the business says he’s inclined to believe the same.

If Chris Nolan has outfoxed us with this mystery, my cowl’s off to him.