Feral #22 // Review
The cats are on one side. The dogs are on the other. There’s a crossover going on the may or may not result in the cast from one series meeting-up with the cast from the other. That’s just the sort of thing that’s going to happen in a time of great stress like the one encountered by the strays in Feral #22. Writer Tony Fleecs fuses his current series with his prior fan favorite Stray Dogs in a flip issue featuring artwork by the team of Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez. Color comes to the page courtesy of Brad Simpson.
The strays have been captured. Ghost is missing. They took Moosh. They don’t know what’s going on. Periodically cats are taken out of their kennels only to return...changed. Rumor is that they are being tested. Those who pass the test are fine. Those who don’t...THOSE are the ones who come back changed. The cats in the facility are much more friendly than those in Pet City. Willow and Seventeen tell the strays what they know about the facility, but it’s not much. There isn’t even really a strong consensus on whether or not the humans are there to help them.
Once again, Fleecs manages a harrowingly tight balance between anthropomorphic of the cats and respect for the distinctly feline spirit of the series. The conflict within the community is fascinating. But he perspective on the situation from various members of the ensemble makes for a really interesting contrast between the different personalities involved. The ensemble of the cats has been through quite a lot over the course of the past couple of years.
Given the fact that so much of what's going on in this issue is simply a matter of a whole bunch of cages, it could be very difficult to make it look anything other than claustrophobic. Indeed, that is the overall idea behind the visuals of this particular turn of events. However, the our team does manage to bring a certain fascinating, visual element to the row upon a row of cat cages. It's particularly shocking in contrast to where the cats have been before over the course of the 21 issues leading into this particular one. Simpsons colors follow the darker tone of the series into a much physically darker space than the series has been in before.
The latest term of events seems to be reaching some sort of big, final climax. But there's no question that things could go in a completely different direction that might develop into something much more elaborate down the line. The addition of the Stray Dogs feature at the end of the issue feels suitably monumental. Stylistically their head, always been sort of an implied shared universe between the two titles. Bringing that vividly to life is something that serves both titles quite well. It's not difficult to imagine a third title coming interview that might be more of a combination of the two ensembles. A fusion of the two series.
