This feature is basically a counterpart to our Left Unresolved feature. That feature is for plotlines that were, well, left unresolved. In this one, though, we spotlight examples of long unresolved stories that WERE ultimately resolved by later writers. The only rule is that at least four years have to pass between the plot point being introduced and it being resolved.

Suggested by reader Dave W., this is a very unusual example for this column, since the original question WAS answered back in the day, pretty much. However, the answer that was given wasn't really all that accepted back in the day and in the years since, it has been answered even FURTHER with new information! So read on to see who freed the Venom symbiote way back in the mid-1980s!

Okay, so Spider-Man gets a new costume in Secret Wars #8 (by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck and John Beatty)...

In Amazing Spider-Man #258 (by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein), Spider-Man goes to visit the Fantastic Four where he discovers that the costume is ALIVE!!

After the Fantastic Four put him into a cage at the end of the issue, we see that the symbiote is pissssssssssed...

In Spectacular Spider-Man #97 (by AL Milgrom, Herb Trimpe and Jim Mooney), he almost tricks that moron Human Torch to let him out...

In Fantastic Four #274 (by John Byrne and Al Gordon), which came out at the same time as Amazing Spider-Man #261, the symbiote is freed (the same basic scene happens in both issues - maybe I should feature it in a future edition of that column I do about shared continuity)...

Okay, here's the thing. Re-read the scene. Note that the probe clearly DIDN'T intend to free it necessarily, it just wanted to study it.

Four issues later in Fantastic Four #278 (by John Byrne and Jerry Ordway), the Baxter Building is lifted into outer space and exploded by Kristoff, the young boy who Doctor Doom had chosen to take over for him when he died (by imprinting his thoughts on to the boy)...

In the next issue, the Fantastic Four fake their deaths while we see the same probe from #274 check them to see if they are dead...

Meanwhile, in Spectacular Spider-Man #98 (by Milgrom, Trimpe and Mooney), the symbiote stalks Peter Parker and plans to bond with him again...

It succeeds in doing so in Web of Spider-Man #1 (by Louise Simonson, Greg LaRocque and Jim Mooney), but then Spider-Man drives it off by using the sound of bells, with the symbiote seemingly sacrificing itself to save Peter...

But then in Amazing Spider-Man #300 (by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane), we see that it survived and then bonded with that jerk Eddie Brock to form Venom...

Obviously, as far as John Byrne and Tom DeFalco were concerned, the story was resolved. Kristoff sent some probes in to set the Baxter Building up for him to launch it into outer space, and while he was there, one of the probes accidentally freed the symbiote. Here's the thing, though, if the probes are meant to be in there to secretly prepare the Baxter Building for launch, why would they risk drawing attention to the situation by freeing the symbiote? Heck, why bother with the symbiote PERIOD when it wasn't the mission at all? So while there was not intended to be anything unresolved there, plenty of readers still felt like something was missing (like Dave, who sent in this suggestion). Namely, WHY did Kristoff free it?

Well, roughly twenty-five years later, the truth was finally revealed. Go to the next page to see the surprisingly complicated explanation for why the symbiote was freed!

The 2010 mini-series Spider-Man/Fantastic Four by Christos Gage and Mario Alberti told four stories of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four interacting, spread out over different eras in Fantastic Four/Spider-Man history.

In the second issue, it depicts the release of the symbiote...

Only this time, it shows that the symbiote began to possess the various members of the FF, including Mister Fantastic...

Until it finally takes control of the most powerful being in the building, Franklin Richards!

As you can see, Gage tries to explain how the symbiote sought on Eddie Brock after this.

At the end of the issue, we see someone Doom-like using information gleamed from freeing the symbiote to discuss creating a bomb...

Sure enough, in Mighty Avengers #7 (by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley and Danny Miki), a Latverian satellite is attacked, leading to it unleashing a "Venom bomb" on New York City...

And eventually in Mighty Avengers #11 (by Bendis, Bagley and Miki), the Avengers arrest Doom over it all...

(Dark Reign happened right after this, and Norman Osborn released Doom).

So at the end of the Spider-Man/Fantastic Four series, it is revealed that the mysterious Doom-like figure in the first three issues was a time-traveling Kristoff from the then-present, who had gone back and in time and made his drone free the symbiote so that he could create a "Venom Bomb" and sell it to Doom in the past and then intentionally release it so that the Avengers would arrest Doom, clearing a path for Kristoff to take over!

So now we know why the probe freed the symbiote!

Oddly enough, Gage and Alberti do change things by having the symbiote be recaptured and put in a new container, noting that it would only escape if the Baxter Building exploded (in a cute nod to the soon-to-come explosion of the Baxter Building). Based on that, though, that means that the symbiote had to fall back to New York from outer space to get back to where it was in Spectacular Spider-Man #98! Not impossible, of course, but still odd.

Interestingly enough, there is one last "explain away a continuity issue" left to discuss, albeit, like the above one, not necessarily something that NEEDED explaining, but hey, why not? The issue is - how did the symbiote survive its sacrifice in Web of Spider-Man #1? Go to the final page to see how...

As you can see in this bit from Web of Spider-Man #1, the symbiote looks pretty darn dead, right?

Well, in 2010's Fall of the Hulks Alpha (by Jeff Parker, Paul Pelletier and Vicente Cifuentes), Parker fills us in on the past of the secret "smart bad guys" group, the Intelligencia, the big villains of the Fall of the Hulks. They're basically like the "smart villain" version of the Illuminati, as we learn that they've been working in the background for years. In The Fall of the Hulks Alpha, Parker shows what they've done over the years, including nursing the symbiote back to health so that it could possess someone else and cause Spider-Man some trouble...

Hoo boy, that's a whole lot of continuity inserts, huh?

Okay, that's it for this installment! Thanks to Doug for the suggestion! If you have a suggestion for a future Provide Some Answers, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com