The Nice House, Spoiled: Both Series, Start to Finish

Walter invites his friends to a lake house, and it is a very nice house. They have no idea that Walter is not human, the world is ending outside without them... and none of them will ever be leaving.

Even the titles are spoilers. We will get to that.

This is Spoiler Alert!, so we are giving away both series below, start to finish. If you want to read them cold, close the tab, find the books and come back. If you want to know what the fuss is about, or you lost the thread somewhere in the Sea and need a refresher, pull up a chair. We went a little batty keeping the chronology straight, so here is the cheat sheet.

The short version

The Nice House on the Lake ran twelve issues, from 2021 to 2022, by James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno, with color by Jordie Bellaire and an Eisner Award.

A group of friends are invited to a lake house by a friend named Walter. While they are there, the world ends. Walter is not human, his people did it, and he brought his friends to the house to save them, which means none of them can ever leave.

The Nice House by the Sea is a second twelve-issue series from the same team, running from July 2024 to October 14, 2026. A second house, run by a second alien named Max, holds ten strangers chosen as the best of humanity. A storm lifts the veil between the two worlds, and only one house can survive. In the last issue, Norah, the Lake's Writer, steps in with a plan, talks Walter round and then Max, and by the reviews we have read, it keeps everyone alive and lets life go on.

The final pages bring in a new group of characters. The story is not over.

How it gets there

The Lake

Walter gives every guest a nickname. Ryan is the Artist, Norah the Writer, David the Comedian, Molly the Accountant, Veronica the Scientist, Sam the Reporter, Arturo the Acupuncturist, Sarah the Consultant, Naya the Doctor and Rick the Pianist. Walter has one too, and the last issue gives it away: the Engineer.

Then the world ends. The guests learn that people in New York are burning to death. Walter explains that his people are behind it, and that he brought his friends here to save them. He looks human right up until he does not. When Norah hits him with a fire poker, he splits in two and puts himself back together.

The house runs on rules. Invisible walls keep everyone inside. Everyone heals fast, nobody ages, and nobody can die, until the day somebody switches that off. Write what you want on a notepad and it appears, from food to whole buildings. A hidden control panel runs it all, and Walter uses it to wipe memories when someone learns too much.

The house is built for ten, and there are eleven. Reg, the Painter, is Walter's friend from high school, and he is the extra. Walter has kept him apart from the group on the grounds. When Reg tries to talk the others into breaking out, Walter wipes their memories afterward.

Then it goes wrong. While the guests are shooting at each other, Ryan accidentally turns off the healing for everyone. Rick shoots Naya, and the Doctor dies. The house cannot bring her back. Ryan is badly hurt and loses an eye.

Every issue opens with one of the guests, hurt and in survival gear, narrating from the burned grounds of the house. You know from the first page that it ends badly. The book is about how.

Issue ten pulls back the curtain. Walter's people set out to preserve ten exceptional humans, each standing for a core piece of humanity, and Walter chose the people he loved. By the end, his friends have turned on him over his lies, and Walter fakes his death. One last exchange of messages in the final pages upends what you thought you knew, and the first cycle closes.

The Sea

Cycle Two starts with a second house. Max, another of Walter's kind, chose ten strangers instead of friends. They are the best of the best in their fields: an actor, a historian, a singer, an artist, a novelist, a Nobel-winning scientist, a Nobel-winning doctor, a former senator, a priest and a mathematician.

They knew what was coming and said yes anyway. Max gave them the control panel from the start, so they could change their bodies and the weather. They do not like each other. James Tynion IV has said the house is about tension more than friendship. One of them, Oliver, the Actor, already knows Walter and the old high school crowd, and he is the only person in the Sea House Max had met before.

Then a storm lifts the veil between the two worlds, and each house finds the other. Only one can survive, or so we're given to understand. The two groups have to decide whether to team up against Walter and Max or turn on each other. Walter, who is supposed to be dead, turns up as a dog, and he is still a dog in issue ten.

By issue ten, the Sea group has crossed over to the Lake House. Norah gets one chance to argue for the Lake's survival, and Max runs out of patience. Several characters die, badly. Reg, who can work the world's controls now, tries to fix what he can, and Oliver finally confronts the dog.

The finale

Issue twelve came out on October 14, billed as the series finale, with both houses collapsing into each other and Walter and Max at war. Norah speaks with Walter, then Max, with a plan: Let the Nice Houses combine, and give these ~20 folks a chance.

We know from the forward jumps in every episode that things are going to get bad, but it seems that we don't know it all. The last pages introduce a new group of characters, seemingly also recruited by Walter, as setup for a third series. DC hasn't announced it yet, but it's made fairly clear.

The nicest house in comics is a prison, and everyone in it picked out the furniture.

What to argue about

Which title is the bigger spoiler? Nice is the first lie. Then read the second title: The Nice House by the Sea tells you the Lake does not end with one house. We think "the Sea" gives away more, but you could make a case for the Lake.

Is Walter a monster or a friend? He ended the world, saved the people he loved, and did the second by lying to them. He's manipulative, at times monstrous, and lonely. He is capable of great love and great deception.

At the end of the second series (of three or more, it's indicated), lead character Norah comes up with a plan. Is she the best of humanity, or just the best at managing it? She's a fascinating character, and Tynion clearly cares deeply about her story.

Who is the larger power? Walter and Max both answer to something bigger, and DC's own guide says the purpose of their experiment is unknown. If a third series comes, that is where we would look first.

If you haven't read it yet

DC's reading order is simple. Start with The Nice House on the Lake, which has twelve issues, then comes The Nice House by the Sea, which has just ended. A deluxe omnibus collects all twelve issues of the Lake in one book, while a more recent paperback collects the first half of the Sea House story.

Note, and this is no joke: DC rates both series for readers 17 and up. Grisly stuff, but mostly for the complicated interpersonal stuff, which is more sophisticated than most kids are ready for.

Stock changes, so ask at the counter what we have on the shelf. Come in on Wednesday, when new comics land, and we will point you to the start.

Visit Bat City Games & Comics at 5001 Highway 290, Austin, Texas 78735, in Sunset Valley.

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