The FactorTonight I read the five issues (#0-4) of The Factor, a small press black-and-white comic from About Comics, which was given a thumbs-up by Tony Isabella earlier this year. Written by Nat Gertler and illustrated by a host of artists, The Factor is summed up in later issues thusly:
There's a superhero that the media has dubbed "The Factor". We don't know his real name, his powers, or his motivations. This series isn't about those things. It's about his effect on others.Issue #0 contains three stories originally published in the B&W potpourri comic Negative Burn. In it, we see (almost) The Factor's first mission - stopping a bank robbery - and see headlines about a few more of his 'cases'. All the public knows about him is that he wears a costume with a star on it, that he appears to be quite strong (he breaks through glass doors of a bank, but might have used some other means to do so), and he's quite, quite anonymous. The hero is described in the news as "a new factor in the war on crime", and is thus dubbed "The New Factor", and eventually just "The Factor". The reaction of the city (New York, in this case) is varied, from paranoia and looking-for-an-angle among the underworld, to hero-worship and cynicism by the man-and-woman-on-the-street, to sensationalism, applause, and looking-for-a-fast-buck-ism from the media. Each issue consists of three-to-six short stories written by Gertler. The stories are at their best when they aim high, especially in #3 which consists of three stories involving making a film based on The Factor, which is tricky since he's still completely anonymous and therefore legal issues are uncertain. The issue is also helped by having the most consistent - and consistently good artwork of the series. (Some of the other issues' art leans a little too far to underground and abstract styles for my tastes.) Other good stories include "Telephone for the '90's" in #1, where a fake Factor Web site is briefly created and then pulled down, and we see the knee-jerk reaction of some net inhabitants to the event. #2's "Essay", which is a strong send-up of the sillier aspects of an unsophisticated socialist outlook. And the intriguing "The Green Diamond Protocol" (also in #2), about how the international spy community looks at The Factor. #4 is an erratic story arc about The Factor's supposed disappearance, although the obvious subtext is: If a figure is completely anonymous yet the subject of media saturation, how can we know that he's gone if we simply don't hear about him for a mere three weeks? Overall, The Factor accomplishes its goals quite handily. However, its interesting premise of a completely anonymous superhero does itself make the question of his (or her) motivations (although not necessarily his identity or powers) interesting in and of itself, not to mention the question of how The Factor views the people he protects and what he thinks of what they think of him. It's really rather different from most other superhero comics just in that regard. I think the only way in which I actually felt disappointed in the series, however, is that I'd have enjoyed a firmer hook into the chronology of The Factor's 'career'. Perhaps one or two stories with people who had genuine close encounters with him, and a sense - albeit indirect - of how he might be growing and changing. Not an 'all is revealed' issue, but more a 'some is revealed, which might cause people to behave a little differently' issue. Gertler says he'd like to do more Factor stories in the future, if this series does reasonably well, and I'd enjoy seeing the next series take a slightly different tack in this way. If The Factor sounds interesting to you, then you can order it directly from the writer/publisher by contacting Gertler at nat@gertler.com.
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