Can "few" be used as a substantive?
Solution 1:
Certainly, as in these two citations from the OED:
The favour of the few may silence the clamour of the many.
A life not for the many, but for the few.
But most famously,
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
No definite article there, but Battle of Britain pilots have ever since been known as 'The Few'.