T.J. VANCE

Real Name: T. J. Vance

Identity/Class: Human

Occupation: Editor and publisher of The Naked Truth

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Dan Cooley

Enemies: She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters), Wyatt Wingfoot

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Teej (as called by "everybody"); "you...slimy...little...worm!" (as called by Jennifer Walters)

Base of Operations: His seedy office in New York City

First Appearance: Fantastic Four I#275 (February, 1985)

Powers/Abilities: Vance was a men's magazine publisher who was skilled in the use of a camera. He also wore a very cheap toupee.

Height: Unrevealed (5'7"; by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed (150 lbs.; by approximation)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: White (balding)

History:
(Fantastic Four I#275 (fb) - BTS) - The past of T.J. Vance is largely unrevealed, but ten years prior, he began publishing The Naked Truth, a sleazy pornographic men's magazine.

   Vance was contacted by WXIT's traffic 'copter pilot Dan Cooley, who had spotted the topless She-Hulk sunning herself on the roof of the Baxter Building every day for the past month. Vance agreed to pay Cooley $1,000 if he flew him overhead so Vance could take some pictures of her to publish in his magazine.

(Fantastic Four I#275) - As Cooley and Vance hovered over the Baxter Building, they saw the topless jade giantess, so Vance began snapping pictures with his camera. Angered by the invasion of her privacy by the airborne peeping-tom, the She-Hulk leapt upon the landing gear of the helicopter and punched a hole through the bottom of the aircraft, but Cooley managed to shake her off into a nearby building, then the two flew away.

(Fantastic Four I#275 - BTS) - Meanwhile, when word got out about his upcoming She-Hulk pictorial, Vance pre-sold three million copies of the issue, and news agents snapped up the run just on the chance Vance would get the pictures like he'd promised -- this was great news for Vance, who'd never sold more than a hundred-thousand copies a month in his ten years of publishing. Vance put all the cash and checks he received from advance sales in the floor-safe in his office.

(Fantastic Four I#275) - The She-Hulk went back to the Baxter Building, and after making a call to WXIT's general manager, she found out where Cooley was and paid him a visit; after persuading his "cooperation," she found out about Vance. The She-Hulk transformed back into lawyer Jennifer Walters, and along with Wyatt Wingfoot, she went to Vance's office.

   T.J. Vance greeted Walters amicably ("Call me Teej, baby. Everybody does. Just everybody."). Explaining to Vance that she was the legal representative of the She-Hulk, Walters threatened legal action against him if he published the photos; however, Vance countered her claim, telling her the She-Hulk was a public figure, meaning she was in the public domain ("Same principle as the scandal rags use to print their lies."). Vance showed her his safe filled with the cash and checks from the advance sales, then offered her the "opportunity" to pose for him in her own pictorial. Disgusted by the putrid purveyor of perversion's proposition, Walters transformed into the She-Hulk, then proceeded to pick up the safe and squashed it down into a large bowling ball. As the She-Hulk left Vance's office, she was in a depressed mood -- at best, she'd won a Pyrrhic victory, because she couldn't smash the printing-presses or break the distribution system, and one way or another, the pictures of her were still going to be published.

   But three weeks later, when the issue of The Naked Truth finally hit the newsstands, the Human Torch (Johnny Storm) bought a copy and showed it to the She-Hulk -- Vance had been in such a rush to get the photos published, he neglected to tell his printers that they were pictures of a green woman, so the printers mistakenly "color-corrected" them, giving all the pictures ordinary Caucasian skin-tone so that the readers couldn't even tell it was the She-Hulk (Johnny Storm: "The same thing happened on an early Star Trek episode!" [see comments]). Grabbing the magazine back, Johnny then rushed off to his room to find a pair of green-tinted sunglasses...

Comments: Created by John Byrne.

T. J. Vance was probably a parody of Hugh Hefner/Bob Guccione/Larry Flynt.

That "early Star Trek episode" that Johnny Storm referred to was the unaired pilot episode "The Cage" (later re-made into the two-part episode "The Menagerie"), wherein actress Susan Oliver at one point was portraying a green-skinned Orion slave girl -- she was made progressively greener in make-up tests because (unbeknownst to creator Gene Roddenberry) a film processor was restoring her skin to the "correct" color, and no one could figure out why she wasn't photographing green.

As angry as She-Hulk was about these sleazy pictures, they saved her soul from the devil. In Sensational She-Hulk#28, a contract she had made with Mephisto (the devil's advocate Montgomery H. Price was very persuasive) was terminated because of these pictures, which offended the high moral standards required in the contract.
--Markus Raymond

Updated images by Ron Fredricks.

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
T.J. Vance has no known connections to:

• Professor Vance - better known as the Marvel Boy villain Great Video--Marvel Boy I#1/4
• Edward Vance - mobster--Madrox#2
• Professor Heathrow Vance - aka the Great Video, Marvel Boy (Grayson) foe--Marvel Boy I#1/4
• Paul Vance - aka the Great Video, video store owner mutated by burning videos--Amazing Fantasy II#15
  
• Terry Vance - the Schoolboy Sleuth--Marvel Mystery Comics#10
• any other characters with similar names

Dan Cooley has no known connection to:

• Charles Cooley - killed own daughter, stopped by Jack of Hearts and Ant-Man (Lang)--Avengers III#76
• Finn Cooley - IRA, uncle of Peter--Punisher VII#7
• Peter Cooley - IRA, captured by Punisher--Punisher VII#7
• any other characters with similar names

Dan Cooley The pilot for WXIT's traffic 'copter, he'd been promised $1,000 by Vance if he flew him over the roof of the Baxter Building while the topless She-Hulk was sunning herself -- Vance wanted to get some photos of her that he could publish in his men's magazine. After calling the WXIT station manager, the She-Hulk tracked Cooley down to a landing field in Jersey, and she persuaded Cooley to spill the beans on Vance when she threatened to toss his helicopter. --Fantastic Four I#275

images: (without ads)
Fantastic Four I#275, p14, pan5 (main image - T.J. Vance, greeting Jennifer Walters)
Fantastic Four I#275, cover (headshot - T.J. Vance)
Fantastic Four I#275, p18, pan1 (T.J. Vance proposes a deal with Jennifer Walters)
Fantastic Four I#275, p19, pan1 (shocked T.J. Vance (toupee on floor) faces She-Hulk)
Fantastic Four I#275, p2, pan2 (Dan Cooley with T.J. Vance in helicopter; She-Hulk (background))
Fantastic Four I#275, p11, pan2 (Dan Cooley being questioned by She-Hulk)

Appearances:
Fantastic Four I#275 (February, 1985) - John Byrne (writer/pencils), Al Gordon (inks), Glynis Wein (colors), Jim Novak (letters), Michael Carlin (editor)

First posted: 04/29/2007
Last updated: 08/01/2023