I think I’m starting to see a pattern with Victor Gischler. It’s that while he can certainly has interesting ideas for stories, he can’t seem to execute them properly.

With part two of the Bayou storyline it’s becoming apparent that Gischler had to stretch this story out for four issues. Cause when reading this there is just a lot of things he decided to focus on to make this an entire issue. There just seems to be easy cuts to make in these past two issues to have it only be half in length that it is. While Gischler has a decent handle on Castle’s voice, the villains themselves are pretty generic. Well generic when it comes to redneck hillbillies I imagine. I don’t think story wise this was a terrible issue by any means. But it was a really quick read and I can’t see where else this story can go past it’s obvious conclusion.

What saves this comic a little bit is the art by Goran Parlov. He did earlier arcs of Punisher MAX (stupid me thought he was a new artist las tissue) and I do like his style. It’s sorta cartoony but when it gets heavy on the action/violence he doesn’t hold back on the realism. Sorta like a more laid back Steve Dillion if you can see it. It’s good to look at but there are still moments in the issue where it seems like Parlov made the characters look too simple. Maybe it’s just me but when I see a character only have dots for eyes it creeps me out.

Maybe Gischler could do outlines for stories and not just overall write them. That might seem harsh and I do feel a little bad saying it. He isn’t a bad writer but he just seems to simplify plots to where he just doesn’t need to tell a story within four to five issues. I still want to pick up the next issue. But unless he does something next time where it totally shocks me, then this will just be another average Punisher story. Nothing more or nothing less.