It all starts with Doctor Strange having a fit of depression. With Clea leaving him, Stephen is heart-heavy and feeling very lonely. He wishes he had someone. His struggle is sensed by his psychic guest: the Over-Mind.
I'm reminded about the typical conversation between two older guys - one single and the other married. There are times when the single guy would envy the married person because the latter is never alone, he has a wife and children who need him and who fill up his life. The married guy, on the other hand, looks at the single guy and looks at a life he used to have but can no longer go back to. More money, more time. Doctor Strange is being so depressed at being alone the Over-Mind uses his mental abilities to peel back the veil of time and space and show the Doctor that it's not always roses for people with a partner.
At first the images that the Over-Mind shows would surely be painful to the Doctor. For these are scenes of blossoming love, of people finding each other.
There is the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.
Hank and Vera.
And, quite surprisingly, something brewing between Namor and the Valkyrie.
There is Daimon Hellstrom and Patsy Walker.
And lastly, Dolly and the Gargoyle.
All these helps to intensify the Doctor's lonliness and he does complain about being shown images of happy couples when he, himself has no one. But the Over-Mind is not finhished as he continues to show the Doctor the other side of being in a relationship.
Hank and Vera are not always on the same wavelength.
The Beast is compelled to reveal the reason for the apparent difference in the attitude of Hank McCoy and the Blue Avenger.
The Submariner's and Valkyrie's perfect night turns out to be not so perfect.
I'll never stop being baffled and amused by the irony that one of the most childish Marvel characters is the Submariner. You would think that considering how long he has been around he would be more mature than this. When happiness is in front of you Namor, grab it. Grab it. You just said 'no' to a fanstastic night with Valkyrie you fool!
Here's another character behaving badly and another relationship that's proving to be a a lot worst than spending the night alone in your house.
I can't be as condemnatory with Daimon as I was with Namor. The guy is billed as the Son of Satan after all. Hahaha. I don't know when Marvel stopped using Satan and started using its in-house master devil Mephisto. In light of that, it does make Daimon Hellstrom a bit of a slip. They can't possibly remake him into the 'Son of Mephisto'. The way Mephisto has been built up, having progeny would ruin his image. Hellstrom is still around in current Marvel continuity.
So, all of this is just the perfect things to show to Strange who does feel his melancholy lifting. It's sort of like: Hey single guy, you, so unhappy that you have nothing to do on the weekend and no one to do it with. Look at the tons, tons, of busy husbands and fathers who would kill for a free weekend.
There is one relationship though that isn't shaky. It is a relationship stabilized by the wisdom of age.
It may have soothed the Doctor but the Over-mind was violating the privacy of the others with that mind trick. Doctor Strange was protesting the act several times but I guess he was curious too.
