Flesh: Book Two, Part 1

NAME
Flesh, Book Two, Part 1

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 A.D. and Starlord Prog 86

DATELINE
14 Oct 78

PAGE COUNT
7

REPRINTS
Scavengers 20, Extreme Edition 7, The Best Of 2000AD and Flesh: The Dino Files.

SYNOPSIS
Trans-Time searches for fish Flesh in the Triassic Period. The Triassic Period begins to fights back and an unexpected time shuttle arrives.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First work on Flesh by Geoffrey Miller and Massimo Belardinelli.

INFORMATION
In the Triassic Period, the Earth had one massive continent called Pangea surrounded by a massive ocean called Tethys.

Trans-Time have used construction rigs to build the Atlantis Station for fish-farming during the Triassic. It is equipped with a powerful magno-grapple. They use two man submarines and a larger mother sub to catch fish in trawl nets. Cybosaurs are a genetically engineered breed of Ichthyosaur that Trans-Time use as a defence against predators. Trans-Time had an operation based in the Devonian Period. Trans-Time produce fish fingers.

J. M. GROSE
Boss of the Atlantis Station.

OTHER CHARACTERS
CHIEF HAWKINS
Trans-Time employee.

OLAF
Trans-Time employee. He worked at Trans-Time's operation in the Devonian Period and fought an over 28 metre long shark. He is eaten by a Tanystropheus.

DEATHS
Thousands. A thousand tons of fish is processed and Olaf is eaten by a Tanystropheus.

BEST LINES
Unnamed but heroic Trans-Time employee: "Wish you'd worry 'bout grading the produce, big Olaf - If any grisly ol' predator slips through the Chief'll bite our heads off!"

WORST LINES
Hawkins: "Messy, real messy! I'll have to tell the boss and he won't like it. J.M. likes things to be neat!"

Neat is the opposite of messy.

CATCHPHRASES
None.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
Grose gives us a flashback to the downfall of the Cretaceous Era base seen in what is now known as Flesh Book One, which means that from the perspective of the 23rd century characters this takes place after that story.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
The Triassic Period lasted from 250 to 200 million years ago.

Ichthyosaurs were giant marine reptiles that first appeared approximately 245 million years ago and at least one species survived until about 90 million years ago, into the early Cretaceous. Askeptosaurs are from a family of reptiles with the wonderful name Thalattosaurians. Fossils have been found from Italy and Switzerland. Tanystropheus as a species has had a bizarre path toward classification. When fossils were first discovered it was thought to be a pterosaur with a very long tail, later it was believed to be an aquatic reptile with a very long neck (as it is represented here) and now there is a consensus that it was a land dwelling dinosaur which used its very long neck to eat fish from the comfort of the shore. Several complete skeletons of juvenile individuals have been found in Italy and dated to 232 million years ago during the middle Triassic period.

The Devonian Period dates from 419 to 359 million years ago. It is named after the English county of Devon, where rocks from this period were first studied. Fish reached substantial diversity during this time and the Devonian has been dubbed the Age of Fish.

About 372 million years ago, a major extinction occurred primarily affecting marine species, such as reef-builders, brachiopods, trilobites, ammonites and jawless fish. The reasons for the Late Devonian extinctions are still unknown and a time travelling corporation from the 23rd century and with little respect for nature cannot be ruled out.

MISTAKES
None.

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
None.

CREDITS
Script: Geoffrey Miller
Artist: Belardinelli
Letters: T. Frame

Geoffrey Miller also wrote for The Angry Planet and a one-off called Moon Ghost in Tornado.

REVIEW
This feels like more of the same, which is no bad thing, but it does feel as though it is lacking a central character.

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