This is "Provide Some Answers," which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.

Reader Jaime B. wrote in to suggest that I address the big plot point in last week's Amazing Spider-Man, which resolved a plot point from J. Michael Straczynski.

I've done a Left Unresolved on this one in the past, and I'll mostly just repeat that post here.

In Amazing Spider-Man #503 (by J. Michael Straczynski, Fiona Avery, John Romita Jr. and Scott Hanna), Spider-Man runs afoul of a powerful being known as Morwen, who has possessed a young woman. At the end, Spider-Man encounters Loki, who is searching for Morwen, as well....













They take down Morwen, as Spidey discovers that Loki is invested because the young woman who was possessed was Loki's daughter (she doesn't know that she is Loki's daughter).

In the end, they save her and Loki then says he owes him a favor...



And that was it. During "One More Day," when Spider-Man was desperate to save Aunt May's life, Loki was then "dead," so he couldn't help Spider-Man at that point. Dan Slott once joked that the favor had been paid off off-panel when Loki helped Spider-Man move a couch once.

However, Slott actually DID decide to resolve the plot, once and for all, in last week's Amazing Spider-Man #795, almost THREE HUNDRED issues later (granted, Amazing Spider-Man went thrice-monthly for quite a while there, but hey, hundreds of issues is still hundreds of issues, ya know?)

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In the years since, Peter Parker has amassed a great fortune and, through, you know, "Parker luck," has lost it all. He is crashing on his girlfriend's couch and gotten a new gig at the Daily Bugle as the newspaper's science editor. In Amazing Spider-Man #795 (by Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Mike Hawthorne, Terry Pallot and Marte Garcia), Spider-Man is summoned to the home of the Sorcerer Supreme. Spider-Man assumes that he is being called in by his old buddy, Doctor Strange (who was the spotlight in the LAST edition of "Provide Some Answers"), but instead, he learns that Loki has taken over from Strange as the new Sorcerer Supreme.

Loki then informs Spidey that he still owes him a favor. He tells Spider-Man that he can turn back time for him and give him back his fortune. Spider-Man thinks hard about this, as he is used to deals like this being too good to be true (he even pays an obscure reference to the deal that he cut with Mephisto in "One More Day"...

In a rage, Spider-Man accidentally breaks a magical cask, unleashing some magical wasp-like creatures. Spider-Man and Loki then have to team-up to stop them and they succeed, but not before the magical creatures have killed an innocent man. Spider-Man, of course, cannot allow that to stand, so he trades in his favor to turn back time to before the man's death. Loki offers to go back further to save Spidey's fortune, but Spidey won't go for it - just the life of the innocent...

After Spider-Man leaves, it is made clear that Loki intentionally left the cask where Spider-Man could break it, as he knew that it would lead to innocents being killed and that Spider-Man would inevitably agree to rescue them as part of his favor. The reason Loki needed the favor off of the books is that he was afraid that Spider-Man might be convinced to call in his favor to force Loki to return the title of Sorcerer Supreme to Stephen Strange. Loki figured that this way, he could cut that problem off at the path.

Very clever stuff from Slott and Gage!

Thanks for the suggestion, Jaime!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a plot that was resolved after a number of years, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!