Feral #17
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFeral #17 is the pivot issue of the series' third story arc — the 'Battle for Pet City' — and delivers one of its most consequential plot turns: the death of Mother Helena, the despotic leader of the Pet City cat colony, killed by her own guard dog Moosh during the rabid invasion she failed to recognize as an existential threat. That single event reshapes the series' power structure entirely, as the morally compromised opportunist Lucky seizes control of the superstore sanctuary in the chaos. As part of a series that earned a 2025 American Library Association Outstanding Comics Award for Young Adults Series Honor Book distinction, this issue sits at the dramatic center of what critics and librarians recognized as genuinely significant animal-horror storytelling.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Feral launched in March 2024 as the follow-up to Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner's breakout collaboration Stray Dogs (Image Comics, 2021), a horror mini-series set in the same shared world. Fleecs has described the creative intention as a deliberate genre pivot from Stray Dogs' claustrophobic, serial-killer premise toward an open-world infection narrative — cats facing an external, contagious threat rather than a human villain. The core creative team on issue #17 is identical to the series' standard lineup: Fleecs (writer), Forstner and Tone Rodriguez (artists), and Brad Simpson (colorist), with Dennis Culver as editor.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Released October 29, 2025 by Image Comics; 32 pages, rated T+.
- Written by Tony Fleecs; art by Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez; colors by Brad Simpson.
- Issue #17 is the second chapter of Feral's third story arc, subsequently collected in Feral Vol. 3 Trade Paperback (August 6, 2025 — note: the arc 4 collection, March 4, 2026, collects #16–20).
- Mother Helena, tyrannical leader of the Pet City cat colony, dies in this issue — killed by Moosh, her own Rottweiler guard dog — ending her reign and triggering a power vacuum.
- Lucky seizes leadership of Pet City in the aftermath of Helena's death, immediately revealing his manipulative and self-serving nature to both Elsie's group and readers.
- The issue also contains a key character beat for William: dispatched by Helena to fight the rabid invaders, he is swarmed and infected, setting up his transformation into one of 'the Bad Kind' in subsequent issues.
- Three cover editions were published: Cover A (Fleecs & Forstner), Cover B (Forstner & Fleecs Movie Poster Homage Variant), and Cover C (1:10 Fleecs Virgin Variant).
- Feral is set in the same shared continuity as Stray Dogs and has been translated into French, making #17's arc internationally available.
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