Feral #26 // Review
The LV-09 rabies virus has begun to infect humans. Elsie doesn’t know this. Not really. She knows the humans are suffering from something very similar to what the bad kind of cats are suffering from. But the world of humans has always been kind of a danger to her. At least in recent memory. And so Elsie is on her own. She's alone. But there's something else out there in the night. Something else is with her in Feral #26. Writer Tony Fleecs continues his feline epic serial with the art team of Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriquez. Color comes to the page courtesy of Brad Simpson.
There's a ghost of something out there. A bigger cat. But not necessarily a “big cat.” Nevertheless, it is speaking to her with authority. It says things that only she could know. It speaks with the authority of her own knowledge. Could there be any question that I know knows what it's talking about? And if it's telling her that she's not meant to be a leader, then certainly there must be some truth to that, right? Truly, she's meant to be alone. That's what it's telling her. That's what she's feeling. That's what she's thinking.
Fleecs move away from the large ensemble dynamic that has animated much of the rest of the series. He's moving in a direction of a deep dive into the psychology of one single cat, who is not entirely on her own. It's a strangely existentialist journey that just happens to involve a stray cat who is plugged by self-doubt. There's a lot of deaf to it. And it is a really interesting opportunity to look back on everything that's gone on over the course of the entire series as it pertains to a single character.
The art team does a good job of capturing the inner emotions of a single cat. There's a lot of anthropomorphize going on, however, she remains distinctly feline throughout. The precise identity of the spectral cat that speaks to her feels almost deific and the way it's rendered for the page. Simpson has done a really good job of creating this supernatural entity, which might just be in Elsie's head. There's a powerful sense of dramatic tension, and psychological terror going on in the heart of the issue. It is brought to the page with strikingly nuanced visuals.
Nevertheless, it's quite dramatic. And it runs the risk of being a little over the top in places. However, it's not very often that this particular series takes a opportunity to look back. It's been one long chase for survival over the course of much of the series. So it's really nice to get a breather like this back over everything that's happened before. At the same time, it's a look ahead. Fleecs and company take a solid close-up on one of the central characters in the ensemble. Her inner emotions are shown in vivid clarity before the series can progress.
