Gertler, Nat – The Factor #0

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The Factor #0

Here’s another case of a book being 5 years old, but I did get it at SPX in 2003, so I’m guessing he’s still working on it. It’s basically the human angle on what happens behind the scenes when a superhero comes and saves the day, with three short stories in here. They all have different artists too. The first is about the news networks response to a superhero, which they’ve apparently never heard of before. The second is about one of the tellers involved in the bank robbery that started the whole thing daydreaming about the superhero during a date with her dull boyfriend. The last story is about a crook trying to take advantage of the new fame of “The Factor” (yes, that does seem to be the name of the superhero) with the other crooks. Here’s my obvious problem with this. Nat mentions in his intro that it took years to get this to print, that he actually had this concept before Astro City and others. The thing is, whoever had the concept first, they did it a whole lot better than this. Not that it’s terrible or anything, the art is always adequate and the writing is fine, it’s just not as good as the other stuff, so why bother? That is one man’s opinion, obviously, but there you go. Here’s an e-mail address, it’s entirely possible that this series got a whole lot better in later issues…