With The CW Arrowverse crossover Elseworlds now complete, we can take a moment and look back at all of the things that we got to see for the first time in this version of the DC Universe. For example, this is the first time that we have got the chance to visit the dark and gloomy Gotham City and some of it’s landmarks like Wayne Tower and Arkham Asylum, but we need to keep in mind there there was a time when you couldn’t even talk about Gotham in a superhero series. So what changed?

TVLine had the opportunity to be at a press event where Caroline Dries, writer for the second part of the Elseworlds crossover with Marc Guggenheim, which was the Arrow episode. Her and The Flash showrunner Todd Helbing also both worked on Smallville years ago. She recalled that, “DC doesn’t let you say Batman or have anything about Gotham — like it’s just off-limits.” But then years later came FOX’s Gotham, which according to Dries gave them the opportunity to do more with the off limit DC Comics’ material. “All of a sudden, we can do stuff,” Dries noted. “And for a bunch of geeks like us, you’re in Heaven. It’s [then just a matter of] trying to figure out what you want to use.”

Throughout the years there have been many nods to the Dark Knight and Gotham City, for example on Arrow when Oliver Queen jokingly said that the Green Arrow’s identity was Bruce Wayne. Helbing had an interesting comparison to their new found freedom of Gotham expression, “It reminds me of… this SNL skit where for the first time they could say a word and they did one skit where they said that word the whole skit.”

Gotham City was going to be very different from the cities we are used to seeing our heroes week to week of Star City, National City and Central City. It was going to have a much darker tone. Dries said that, “we were trying to create, with music and the exteriors and the alleys and the grime, a sort of uncomfortable city.” They were also going to make sure that their version of Gotham City was very different from what viewers had already seen on Gotham, so they took their exterior shooting to Chicago. “We loved the idea of Chicago, because it feels like that’s the cityscape we’re looking for,” Dries explained. “It’s hard to do a new version of Gotham, but we knew the Vancouver skyline wasn’t quite right. It was a little too modern.”

RELATED: ELSEWORLDS: PART 2 – CAN THE CRISIS BE STOPPED?

Hopefully Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane aka Batwoman made enough of an impression for there to be a series for her over at The CW. That way we can further more explore Gotham City and all of it’s ever present Batman references. Like how we saw Nora Fries use her husband’s freeze gun, Bane’s mask or that fear toxin that infected Barry and Oliver. But Dies does make it clear that we can get all the Batwoman and Gotham City we want, but Batman, the Dark Knight himself is still off limits. “That’s the one where they cut you off!” Dries reported with a laugh. “Slowly but surely, we’ll just keep kicking away at it.”

What did you think about our first visit to Gotham City in the Arrowverse? Let us know in the comment section below!

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Source: TVLine