Created by Pat Mills Schedule Weekly | Publisher Fleetway
Rebellion Genre Science fiction | |
Formats Original material for the series has been published as a strip in the comics anthology(s) 2000 AD. Publication date February 1977 – present |
Flesh is a recurring story in the weekly anthology comic 2000AD created by writer Pat Mills.
Contents
Publishing history
Flesh first appeared as part of 2000 AD's opening line up in its first issue in 1977. The series was set in the age of dinosaurs who were farmed for their meat by cowboys from the future. The series was initially planned by Mills to be in Action, but after that title suffered censorship, Mills held the story back for his next project which eventually became 2000 AD.
The strip followed a similar path to Hook Jaw, one of the strips Mills had written in Action, in that it featured humans trying to dominate nature for their own purposes before being eaten by sharks in Hook Jaw and dinosaurs in Flesh. Mills' original story also shows some influence from Westworld as the frontier town on which the plot focuses is policed by an android and tourists treat the Dinosaurs as a theme park attraction. The first book ran for the first 19 issues of 2000 AD as well as the 1977 annual.
Flesh Book One proved popular but the series was not mentioned again until during the Judge Dredd story The Cursed Earth when Satanus (a Tyrannosaurus cloned from the son of Old One Eye, the main dinosaur from the first Flesh story) appeared in the course of that story. Following this appearance the series returned with Flesh Book Two in issue 86, which was written by Kelvin Gosnell and drawn (with the exception of the last two episodes) by Massimo Belardinelli. The series again proved popular and ran until issue 99.
Further books followed in issues 800–808 and 817–825, written by Mills and Tony Skinner with art by Carl Critchlow, and issues 973–979 written by Dan Abnett and Steve White with art by Gary Erskine and Simon Jacob.
After a 10-year absence from 2000 AD, flesh returned in 2007 30th year anniversary Prog #1526 with "Hand of Glory". This was a prequel to the events of "Book 1" showing how Claw Carver won the claw he wears on his hand, by cutting it from a dinosaur that had just eaten Claw Carver's hand. 4 years later, the direct sequel to "Book 1" appeared in 2000 AD, called "Texas". This described the aftermath of the disaster at the Trans Time base. Following this came "Midnight Cowboys" in 2012, the sequel to "Texas", which had never reached a conclusion. Flesh again returned in 2013 with "Badlanders" which featured the return of "Book 1" characters Earl Reagan, who had been imprisoned for his role in the destruction of the Trans Time base, and Claw Carver, who had been rescued before he arrived at Atlantis, where he met his death in "Book 2".