The Nice House by the Sea #1- A Post-Apocalyptic Paradise for Perfect People
From DC Black Label
Written by James Tynion IV
Art by Alvaro Martinez Bueno
The Nice House by the Sea is the tantalizing follow up to the award winning and thought provoking horror tale The Nice House by the Lake from Tynion and Bueno back in 2022. If you haven’t done yourself a favor and read the previous series then I have to urge you to do so because it is one of my favorite comic series of all time, and certainly one of the best DC Black Label series ever, on originality alone.
I don’t want to spoil the events of The Nice House on the Lake upfront here, but I do want to provide some context into this new series so I think the basic premise can’t hurt. In The Nice House on the Lake, we followed a group of longtime friends and estranged acquaintances from various walks of professional life all of whom gathered for a big retreat at the lake house of their mutual friend- Walter. However, very quickly into their relaxing getaway, the members of the group begin to feel an uneasiness to their new surroundings and decide to check their phones, where they discover that a horrific global cataclysm has seemingly ended all life on Earth aside from those in the house. Immediately this calls to mind a conversation that one of the members in the house had with their host Walter, years ago when they were young, when he asked them “What would you do if this was your last day on Earth.” With the seed of mistrust laid and the shocking finality of life as they knew it, the residents of the “Nice House,” are faced with even more questions, foremost of which is, “Who or what is Walter, really?”
It is a gripping, intelligently eloquent series with intense body horror sequences and powerful science fiction imagery that is a literary testament to the power of perspective and detailed characters. Furthermore, it is precisely the kind of nuanced cult genre fiction with an immersive thorough world that would make for an award winning HBO television series, just saying.
The Nice House by the Sea drops us back into the same bizarre “after-world” with a new ensemble cast of characters placed in similar idyllic circumstances. However, rather than a group of old friends from many walks of life, we are now focused on a group of strangers, all with their own fabulous mansions along the Mediterranean coast, all of whom are legendary award winning professionals. Will this group of fortunate titans overseen by their host, Max, suffer the same delusions, despair, and paranoia as their counterparts along the Lake? Or will they relish in their paradise for eternity?
If you are looking for an original series to obsess over and investigate, with an unfolding mystery laden with lovingly crafted visual and contextual clues, then this series should definitely be on your radar. Also, if you are looking for truly inspiring and groundbreaking artwork, then that is also a huge highlight of this book. I feel like it says something that I struggled describing what it was I was looking at in writing this review, thus I can’t imagine what it was like for Alvaro to translate the words of the script to visual medium.
Let’s dive more into Issue #1 now which means,
WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Issue #1 opens the same way that the previous series opened with one of our new house members, Oliver Landon Clay, sitting in a New York bar asking a stranger what they would do if they knew the world was going to end. Additionally, we are eased back into the world with the familiar macabre imagery laden, monologue format that was so iconic from The Nice House on the Lake. In this instance, we see Oliver kneeling on the beach as the lapping waves slowly uncover the skulls of more and more dead people covered over by the red sand. It’s a truly shocking, profound piece of art that disturbingly makes me all the more excited to dive back into the world of this series.
Next we cut to Oliver waking up in his lavish home, annoyed to discover that it is raining outside. We also get a glimpse at the map of our series, with every character laid out along the coast with a strange, otherworldly symbol denoting them, much like the Lake house.
Yet, as Oliver visits his neighbor, we are immediately made aware of just how different the world and concept of this story is compared to the previous installment. First of all, Oliver converses with Henry Allen, a renowned historian that is reportedly 74 years old and yet is lifting weights like a champion bodybuilder. Most glaringly different however, is the nature of the conversation, with Oliver asking Henry bluntly, “Who decided it was going to rain today?”
Rather than the members of the Lake House, laboring under the delusion of control, clinging to realities principles, the members of the Houses by the Sea are cognizant of the abilities of their alien benefactors, even taking advantage of the advanced technology made available to them.
This unique relationship is deepened as Oliver travels to the other houses along the Sea, eventually walking in on The Doctor, Hector and The Scientist, Quinn- adjusting Quinn’s biological proportions to be a young, attractive, naked woman again with a mysterious multi-fold pad of sorts. Oliver urges Hector to adjust the weather so that he can take his boat out as he had planned, a request that Hector initially denies saying that it is best to sometimes allow Victor, The Writer’s, his crazy impulses.
Inevitably, Oliver gets his wish and we cut to him lounging on a speed boat in the sun, but only for a moment before Max makes his first appearance. Max is strikingly similar to Walter in appearance, an unassuming curly haired, slender young man hidden behind glasses. Honestly, it makes me wonder if the entire race of extraterrestrial beings in this series look like Cate Blanchett from the Todd Haynes Bob Dylan film, I’m Not There, or if Max and Walter are simply more like brothers. Max informs Oliver that the weekly meeting is starting soon and Oliver apologizes for having lost track of time, agreeing to take the “short way” back home.
In a dazzling splash page, Max and Oliver arrive at the picturesque coastal alcove where the meetings take place in a flurry of color and other-dimensional fluid-like biological fury. At the meeting, Victor balks at Oliver’s petty mission to change his weather and the collective group argues about the extent of limitations.
It is clear from this scene and the characterization of Max in general that Tynion is highlighting just how powerful the extraterrestrial entities are and how much they control. Rather than a slow unraveling of the reality of the world like in Nice House on the Lake it is clear that Nice House by the Sea is going to be more concerned with the social politics and combating egos of these seemingly perfect people in their perfect world. After all, as Tynion remarks in the teaser interview for the series, these are the people that Walter and Max’s race were intended to save, those humans who had proven themselves exceptional in some way.
This issue also reveals splinters within the group dynamic with some characters carrying out activities in spite of Max, and others content to live peacefully under his watchful eye. In fact, Oliver is revealed to be the foremost outsider, as we see an email chain between him and Max where Oliver asks Max not to bring him along to the house as he intended.
As the meeting concludes, with Victor acquiescing to his dramatic, enlivening thunderstorm pushed to the evening, Max manifests champagne glasses for everyone, with a toast to the 2 year anniversary of the end of the world. Well, he says it is in honor of the “retreat” but we all know what he means.
Later, we see Oliver decide to take a walk in the anticipated thunderstorm as Victor and Hector fiddle with the controls to the environment and willfully amplify the storm outside of the agreed parameters. The ensuing intensity causes a rift in the temporal reality of the environment in front of Oliver, with what seems to be a living entity reaching out and touching his mind, causing him to relive a memory from his past. We see a young Oliver not with Max, but with a young Walter as Walter explains to him the plan for the ending of the world. Curiously, Walter delivers a detail that we had not been made aware of in Nice House on the Lake, with the implication of other “Houses” winning.
Reeling out of the memory, we see Oliver attempt to navigate his way through his bizarre and unimaginable new found environment, stuck in the liminal space between things, before he is transported to- the alien temple from The Nice House on the Lake, standing eye to eye with the surviving characters from that series.
It’s a surprising twist ending that I cannot wait to see resolved and I hope that we get even more answers to the overarching logic of this apocalyptic, extra-dimensional universe. Will it be “Lake” versus “Sea” or will they instead pool their minds and limited resources together in order to escape their respective paradises?
Remember to support your local comic book store and grab The Nice House by the Sea in stores now!
-Nicholas Aaron Hodge
