The Nice House by the Sea #4 – James Tynion IV, Writer; Alvaro Martinez Bueno, Artist; Jordie Bellaire, Colorist
Ray – 10/10
Ray: The first volume of this epic series, The Nice House on the Lake, took us into the world of the strange parasocial friend group anchored by the mysterious alien Walter – who tried to give them all immortality in a gilded cage as the apocalypse arrived. But this second chapter introduces us to two critical characters who we never knew about – Walter’s fellow alien Max, who is running her own experiment with a group of elites she’s chosen to survive the end of the world, bonded not by friendship but by their belief that they deserve to be the heirs of humanity. And in that group, we find Oliver – who happens to be Walter’s ex, the one friend who never quite bought into Walter’s manipulations and even escaped him by switching colleges without Walter’s knowledge. And when Walter realizes he’s been crossed…there’s a segment here told in closed-circuit camera footage that’s one of the scariest things in the series.
And in the original house, the remaining residents are left with a terrifying prospect – how do they keep Max from discovering what’s become of her frenemy Walter? Of course, we have good reason to believe Walter might not be fully gone, but they don’t know this – and another eldritch abomination without his few scruples is paying them a visit. The series does an incredible job of building tension by keeping Max off-screen but letting her presence be felt in both houses – and things start to unravel as we check in on the other house, as the amoral geniuses there figure out a new way to use then control panel – and when they realize that one of them isn’t what they say they are, the power of their control is unleashed in a terrifying way. This is a slow-burn series, one that combines both supernatural horror and very human evil in a way that’s going to stick with me for a long, long time.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
