What the Devil Expected

After Peter destroyed Nimrod, Mephisto used a brief reality rift opened in Universe 616 to enter it, where he began plotting something.

Then his plan was interrupted when Kang used the Cosmic Cube to create the Kang Dynasty. To restore everything to normal, he found Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider who had signed a contract with him, and had him use the Eye of Judgment to awaken the other heroes and fight Kang together.

"And the reason Mephisto did this was entirely because he had a scheme of his own. He needed to restore the original world."

Strange told Peter this. Peter had guessed as much before, but he did not know exactly what Mephisto had done.

"So, did you find out what Mephisto was plotting?"

Peter had been looking forward to a definite answer from Strange, but Strange's response left him completely dumbfounded.

"He was trading stocks."

???

Peter took a moment to wonder whether he had misheard, then looked at Strange. "Trading what stocks?"

"Simply put, in just a few days, Mephisto amassed hundreds of millions through the stock market, and used magic to keep people from noticing anything was wrong."

Strange described something that sounded nothing like an event from the real world. "He used all that money to purchase roughly three percent of Roxxon Energy Corporation's shares, becoming a member of the company's board of directors. Then we caught him and drove him away."

Peter's mind froze for quite a while before he finally asked, "He didn't do anything else?"

"No."

Peter scratched his head. He knew a little about Roxxon Energy Corporation. It had been a villainous organization in the Defenders series and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he genuinely had no idea what sort of scheme the company was involved in.

It was a company