Flesh is a long-running series created by Pat Mills which originally appeared in 2000 AD progs 1 to 19 in 1977 and progs 86 to 99 in 1978-79 (as well as the 1978 2000 AD Annual). It has since returned in 2000 AD progs 800 to 808 (1992), progs 817 to 825 (1993), progs 973 to 979 (1996), prog 1034 (1997), prog 1526 (2007), progs 1724 to 1733 (2011), progs 1774 to 1785 (2012) and progs 1850 to 1861 (2013). Parts of the series were also reprinted in the Eagle in the 1980s.
Backstory[]
Flesh concerns cowboys from the future sent back in time by the Trans-Time Corporation to farm dinosaur flesh in order to feed people in their own time, where the world is in the grip of global food shortages. The first two books largely looked at the conflict between the cowboys, nominally led by Earl Reagan, and the 120-year-old tyrannosaur Old One Eye, who nearly killed Reagan's friend Joe Brontowski. Reagan also had a human enemy in the shape of the vicious and untrustworthy Claw Carver, a man who had lost his right hand to a dinosaur and wore a dinosaur's claw in its place.
Later stories have focused more on the moral implications of Trans-Time's activities, as well as science fiction concepts such as historical change caused by time travel, human/dinosaur hybrids, and a tyrannosaur called Gorehead which became a tremendous threat after becoming unanchored in time. The cast has expanded to include such characters as Vegas Carver (secretly the daughter of Claw Carver and the prostitute Janie B. Good), Boots McGurk (who lost his life trying to kill Gorehead), Bull Svensson and his submarine crew (Bull was murdered by Claw Carver) and the insane Pastor Sunday (who believes the Cretaceous period is Hell, and who is actually a serial killer responsible for the death of Vegas Carter's mother).
Another significant character was the giant nothosaur Big Hungry, which hated Claw Carver for killing its offspring and which was eventually transported accidentally through time to become the Loch Ness Monster.
Links to other 2000 AD series[]
Flesh has ties to at least three other series in 2000 AD, and is part of the loosely connected shared universe in which several of Pat Mills' stories exist. Satanus, the cloned son of Old One Eye, first appeared in the Judge Dredd story The Cursed Earth, and was later taken even further into the future by the magicks of Thoth in Nemesis the Warlock. Meanwhile, Golgotha, son of Satanus and grandson of Old One Eye, faced the ABC Warriors in their original series (the Warriors also encountered Satanus himself when they were reintroduced in the Nemesis series). The series Bloodfang in Eagle also appears to be set in the same world as Flesh.