One of my favorite parts of comics, as opposed to most other forms of writing, is that it renders the “This happened. And then this happened.” didactic storytelling technique redundant. There are pictures to show you the progression of the story.

In this Annual, we get Socks The Cat (former avatar of The Red) telling Maxine (the new avatar of The Red) some history of The Green and The Red battling together to fight The Rot.

Instead of just seeing the action, there’s a lot of over-explanation. It felt tonally very similar to the first few issues of Swamp Thing. While I have enjoyed Swamp Thing nearly as much as Animal Man, I enjoyed Swamp Thing more for its art than its story. And while Green II’s art is very good, it’s not so gorgeous that it makes up for a dull story.

Having not read future issues (stupid broken time machine), I can’t say that this issue won’t enhance the upcoming crossover or future issues, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the regular series, and don’t see it as a MUST READ issue.

My one problem with the art is the way children were drawn. Instead of looking like children, they tended to look like miniature adults with freakishly large heads.