After a ten-month delay, The Nice House by the Sea #7 returns us to the melodrama of two biodomes of humans living out their lives post-Earth’s destruction. With the ability to get anything they want and live their lives as they see fit, one would assume they’d hunker down and be happy, but now that they know the people by the sea know about the people of the lake, it’s all-out war. At least for one side. In a tense and foreboding issue, the people who live by the sea enter the lake-people’s home to wipe them from existence.
The Nice House by the Sea #7 opens with Reginald Madison reflecting on Walter giving him the keys to make a world for his friends to live in. Speaking from some dark void, presumably from the future, as most of these issues open with, we’re given a front row seat into the making of the lake house and its location. For fans of The Nice House by the Lake, this is a compelling scene you’ll love. As if walking through the Big Bang, Walter and Reggie discuss what to make for Walter’s friends with splatterings of color all around them. It’s as if they’re walking amongst the Pillars of Creation, an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.
This opening takes up five pages, which is a good lead-in to Reggie and Ryan entering the sea biodome with no idea what they’ll be running into. Once there, the setting is eerie, with nobody around. Soon, they run into a trapped Oliver, a guy who knows what’s really going on, and the drama ramps up. Add in the fact that Walter is the dog, with a great moment of clarity between the dog and Oliver, and the impending attack is intense to say the least.
Walking amongst the stars. Or are they?
Credit: DC Comics
The rest of the issue is set on the lake side of things, as the various characters have no idea what is coming, even though we do. Álvaro Martínez Bueno ramps up the creepiness and dread as we see the sea-people lingering outside, watching the lake-people with no idea what is about to happen. As if we forgot how sadistic the sea-people are, writer James Tynion IV reminds us how lacking in empathy the sea-people are in a scene about the sub-par library of the lake-people. The danger levels couldn’t be higher as your worry for the lake-people escalates.
Bueno, along with color artist Jordie Bellaire, does exceptional work here, particularly the various layout structures. Full-page spreads sprinkled throughout the issue speed up the pace, with slower-paced pages like a double-page splash of 18 panels as each character faces a threat, helping play against your expectations and fears. By the end of the issue, Bueno makes it abundantly clear that the real threat in this follow-up series is people.
There’s also a good bit of sci-fi weirdness, starting with the big-bang creation area at the start, but later with freaky sea-person Hector and his obsession with using the alien technology to go beyond his humanity. If ever there was a visual to depict the lack of humanity in the sea-people, he is it.
The Nice House by the Sea #7 is a masterclass in controlled tension, reminding readers that the most frightening monsters in this world aren’t alien intelligences or godlike architects, but people who believe they’re justified. James Tynion IV sharpens the series’ central thesis by stripping away any illusion of coexistence, while Martínez Bueno and Bellaire manipulate space, layout, and silence to make every page feel ominous. By the end, it’s chillingly clear that survival isn’t the point anymore: dominion is.
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