History ComicBook / Flesh

** UpToEleven in Book 2 when basically the entire Human cast of Atlantis station in the Triassic Era died. Even Claw Carver bought it at the end of Book 2 when he ran into the Nothosaur Big Hungry.

* DumbDinos: The dinosaurs are portrayed as instinct-driven and unintelligent, but are incredibly violent in the case of the predators and still dangerous. As the narration noted though, they had survived for many millions of years, and their kitten-sized brains are more than enough to help them thrive in their prehistoric DeathWorld and fight the Human intruders.

--> ''[[{{Tagline}} You're reading it! They're eating it!]]'' '''''[[TitleDrop FLESH!]]'''''

--> ''[[{{Tagline}} You're reading it! They're eating it!]]''

* CattlePunk: The series practically ''oozes'' this. The dino hunters and herders of the Trans-Time corporation are the new cowboys of the 23rd century and acts like them, albeit armed with futuristic technology. The prehistoric eras also has the feel of a much more dangerous untamed wild WeirdWest filled with prehistoric monsters. The entire conflict between the Humans and Dinosaurs is reminiscent of the conflict between Cowboys with Native Americans - except this time, or at least for a time, the Native Americans wins.

** [[FridgeBrilliance: Could be that Trans-Time deliberately stole and deposited populations of dinosaurs from various eras into the same time period for convenience of harvesting operations]]. They do have the ability to TimeTravel in bulk, after all.

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* AnimalsNotToScale: Big Hungry, the anti-villain of Book 2, is downright humongous for a ''Nothosaurus''. He's stated to weigh 50 tons, and is big enough to bite a good-sized submarine in half. Even the largest real life nothosaurs would have barely reached one ton, and wouldn't have been a threat to a human.

* AnimalsNotToScale: Big Hungry, the anti-villain of Book 2, is downright humongous for a ''Nothosaurus''. He's stated to weigh 50 tons, and is big enough to bite a good-sized submarine in half. Even the largest real life nothosaurs would have barely reached one ton, and wouldn't have been a threat to anything bigger than a small fish.

* AnimalsNotToScale: Big Hungry, the villain of Book 2, is downright humongous for a ''Nothosaurus''. He's stated to weigh 50 tons! Even the largest real life nothosaurs would have barely reached one ton.

* GoodIsNotSoft: Earl Reagan is the closest thing to a hero among the Humans' side, but he's still a rough and tough dino-herding/hunting cowboy who don't take insults and threats lying down. One example was when Claw Carver threaten to kill him for bringing his sick buddy Joe into his town for treatment (as he could infect them all with a Crestacous Era disease). Earl's response is to punce at Carver and try to kill him first.

* GoodIsNotSoft: Earl Reagan is the closest thing to a hero among the Humans' side, but he's still a rough and tough dino-herding/hunting cowboy who don't take insults and threats lying down. One example was when Claw Carver threaten to kill him for bringing his sick buddy Joe into his town for treatment (as he could infect them all with a Crestacous Era disease). Earl's response is to jump him and try to kill him first.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: The Furry T-Rex Alpha of the northern packs is implied to be ferocious and mighty predator with a resume to rival Old One Eye herself. Both of them instinctively treated the other as an equal after a 'traditional T-rex greeting' and the two were the undisputed leaders of TheHorde besieging the Trans-Time Base, leading the final charge together which finally breached and overran the Human stronghold.

--> '''Claw Carver:''' So what?

* WeAREStrugglingTogether: There are initial unity among the Humans, but mistrust, grudges and disagreements (Such as Earl Reagan's feud with Claw Carver and conflicts with the base controller) often end up tearing apart Human cooperation at the worst moments, giving dinosaurs opportunities to exploit. Conversely, there are no alliances between Dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts, with the predatory Dinosaurs often fighting each other as frequently as they fight the Humans, but as prey populations dwindle and hatred for Humans grew they instinctively started working together more and more, culminating in a massive siege of the Trans-Times Base by a horde of carnivorous Dinosaurs.

* ArchEnemy: Both Earl Reagan and Claw Carver knows and hated each other for past transgressions. Not helped by the fact Claw Carver is a mean and despicable scumbag of the highest order whom Earl Reagan can't stand.

* BloodKnight: Claw Carver is the biggest example among the Humans, always itching to fight and kill Earl Reagan for past grudges and almost relishes battles with Dinosaurs whether with his own prosthetic claw and bare hand or armed with bigger weapons. Earl Reagan arguably shares this as well, but his reason and honour kept it from being as AxCrazy as Claw Carver. Meanwhile, many of the carnivorous Dinosaurs like the T-Rexes are also this towards the Humans and even each other, their bloodlust stoked by hunger (as the Humans kept stealing their food supply of herbivorous Dinosaur prey) and/or a thirst for revenge (In Old One Eye and Big Hungry's case, the former for losing an eye and the latter for his children being killed).

** Joe Brontowski is no slouch either. Though he sympathise with the dinosaurs, when a Pterodon attacked him and is too close for him to use his blaster, he instead jumped it and tried to throttle the flying reptile, leading to a brief HighAltitudeBattle between man and beast.

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: How "Nailbomb", a minor character in the ''Texas'' arc, dies, courtesy of a ''Quetzalcoatlus''. Subverted with Joe Brontowski in Arc 1, as while a Pterodon nearly stabbed him with its beak, he managed to avoid it by grabbing hold of its neck and trying to throttle it mid-air.

* SmugSnake: The controller responsible for the Trans-Time Base Three processing dinosaur meat and sending them back to the 23rd century is one of these, being insufferably arrogang and self-assured about the superiority of Human technology and the dinosaurs being no threat and being more concerned about meeting company quotas for meat supply then the genuine threat of the starving carnivorous dinosaurs gathering into a horde to besiege the base, ignoring Earl Reagan's warnings and even having him and Joe arrested for trying to stop him hanging some of Earl's own men for perceived cowardice.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Arguably the point of the comic. The dinosaurs are pretty nasty in their own right, especially Old One-Eye, but the author never misses an opportunity to remind us of how greedy and selfish the humans are. The collected edition even includes a fake advertisement for Trans-Time dinosaur meat, which ends with author commenting that "the biggest monster of all is the one sitting at the table!"

* {{Determinator}}: Trail boss Earl Reagan among the Humans in Book 1, and his AnimalNemesis Old One Eye is also one. Both of them refuses to lay down and die even where they should had bought it, and would survive and persist no matter what it takes to achieve their goals, even if it means taking on giant man-eating prehistoric monsters or futuristic technological defences respectively. As Earl Reagan [[BadassBoast puts it]]...
--> '''Earl Reagan:''' ''Nobody'' makes Earl Reagan extinct!

* DownerEnding: Book 2 doesn't end well for anybody (except, perhaps, Big Hungry). [[TheHeroDies Peters ends up drowning trying to return Atlantis Station to the 23rd century]], [[AssholeVictim Claw Carver gets eaten by Big Hungry]], the rest of the crew end up eaten by Nothosaurs or drowning when the station goes down. JM Grose survives, but is stranded on a tiny lifeboat 200 million years from home. Peters' attempt to bring the station back doesn't even count as a HeroicSacrifice, as all he succeeds in doing is dumping Atlantis station into the ocean in some random time period drowning any potential survivors, where it becomes the legend of {{Atlantis}} and diverting Big Hungry to Loch Ness.

* {{Gorn}}: Definitely lived up to the ''Action!'' standard for graphic violence.

* AntiVillain: Both Old One-Eye and Big Hungry qualify. While they serve as antagonists to the human characters, they both have [[FreudianExcuse relatable backstories]] that make them more than just bloodthirsty monsters-- Old One-Eye wants revenge against the humans who destroyed her food supply, while Big Hungry likewise wishes to kill the person who killed his babies.

* HeroAntagonist: Earl Reagan is arguably one if we consider the Dinosaurs like Old One Eye as the primary protagonists. He's rough on the edges, but also constantly showing himself a man of honour and reason who tries his best to protect and save his fellow Human coworkers and subordinates, standing out among other Humans who often show themselves to be greedy, foolish, vicious, or all three at once. He is still an enemy of the Dinosaurs by being a cowboy who's herding/hunting them to be processed for food, but for him [[PunchClockVillain it's just a job]] he's good at, and even then while not hesitating to kill them he still treats them with considerable respect by treating them as the legitimately ferocious, powerful, and dangerous creatures they really are.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: While the Humans' own complacency and ineptitude resulted in this many times, Claw Carver's own self-own early in the series takes the cake. Claw Carver's fight with Earl Reagan in Carver City led to the destruction of the former's own frontier town, as his own android was programmed to stop fights with lethal force if necessary (even the one started ''by his own owner''), and when the Android's aim was deflected it fired its laser gun skywards and breached the dome protecting it - conveniently when Old One Eye and her pack of T-rexes had just arrived to settle their score with the Humans for stealing their prey (and Earl Reagan in particular for blinding her).

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: How "Nailbomb", a minor character in the ''Texas'' arc, dies, courtesy of a ''Quetzalcoatlus''.

* GoodIsNotSoft: Earl Reagan is the closest thing to a hero among the Humans' side, but he's still a rough and tough dino-herding/hunting cowboy who don't take insults and threats lying down. One example was when Claw Carver threaten to kill him for bringing his sick buddy Joe into his town for treatment (as he could infect them all with a Crestacous Era disease), Earl's response is to jump him and try and kill him first.

* BittersweetEnding: Book 1 ends with one arguably for both Dinosaurs and Man. By destroying the Trans-Time Base and driving the Humans back to the 23rd century, the Dinosaurs have for the time being got their world back, although this is implied to likely be temporary as the Humans would eventually come back and continue hunting/herding them for their meat, [[ForegoneConclusion leading to their extinction]]. While Old One Eye never truly got to avenge herself on Earl Reagan, she still finally got the carnivorous Dinosaurs' food supply back, and when the exertion proved too much for her old body she was still able to make it to the T-Rex Graveyard and die on her own terms, undefeated and triumphant. Meanwhile, although Earl Reagan lost his buddy Joe and was arrested upon returning to the 23rd century and being misblamed in part for the disaster, his efforts still ensured he and the remaining Human survivors of the base make it back home, and he's at least content to know Claw Carver, whose TimeMachine controls he sabotaged, would be lost in time and would never come back (indeed, he would meet his end in Book 2 to a Triassic creature whom he crossed).

** UpToEleven in Book 2 when basically the entire Human cast of Atlantis station in the Triassic Era died. Even Claw Carver bought it at the end of Book 2 when he ran into the Nothasaur Big Hungry.

* CasualTimeTravel: Played with. Time travel is heavily regulated; Certain periods of history, such at the 20th century, are off limits to time travellers. This doesn't stop rogue Trans-Time employees from running illegal safaris back to the Cretaceous era for extra profit.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Trans-Time is run by them, both on site and off in the 23rd Century. They refused to send help to Earl Reagan and Claw Carver's town when they were under attack by Dinosaurs as they prioritised processing the herd of Dinosaurs they were rounding up first. When the Trans-Time base is being threatened by the Dinosaurs and the situation has gone completely out of control, the other company executives left their own executive running the show as well as all the remaining Humans there to their fate rather than sending reinforcements or helping with their evacuation.