Feral is felinesque both in appearance and attitude. She has fur, claws, a tail, and heightened agility. Her mutancy has somewhat affected her mentality, making her the hunter, and all her enemies the prey.

Maria was born to a very poor, and very large, family of six in the Bronx. She is the oldest after her sister Lucia. Theirs was an unhappy childhood marred by the poverty and drugs of the neighborhood. Their father overdosed on drugs, their mother beat them and blamed them for their poverty. Maria's sanity soon became in question when her younger sister, Carolina, died in an 'accident.' Soon after, her younger brother Matteo fell off the roof of their apartment building in another 'accident.' It was about this time that her mutantcy manifested, as well as Lucia's (almost completely the same, although it did not take over her psyche). Maria's sanity finally broke down when she saw that Lucia was going to be raped by her mother's 'boyfriend' and she killed him, with Lucia trying to cover it up. When her mother found out about this, she killed Maria's pet pigeons and in return Maria killed her mother. This is when she stopped being Maria and became Feral.

Lucia helped cover up her sister's crimes and they went underground, joining the Morlocks, where Lucia became known as Thornn. For a while, they lived as well as they could, but Feral soon felt abused by the leader of the Morlocks, Masque, and tried to escape. In her escape attempt she ran into Cable and X-Force who assisted her in her escape. She joined up, though never quite felt at ease with them, and they weren't with her. Eventually she was tempted away by Reignfire to join the MLF, betraying the X-Force. She stayed with the MLF until she was arrested for the crimes against her family, assisted in this by X-Force and Dani Moonstar. Feral is currently in prison.