"The Sunken City" (34 page adventure)
One-pagers: 2 Scrooge + 1 Donald
"Luck of the North" (32 page Donald/trio vs. G. Gander adventure)

A couple of longer stories are the focus of this volume. The first, the cover-featured “The Sunken City”, sends Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and the boys deep sea diving in a quest for the world's rarest coin. But they never expected to find Atlantis …

The second tale, “Luck of the North,” has Donald and his nephews racing off to the Arctic Circle to rescue cousin Gladstone … after Donald, jealous of his luck, sends him there on a wild goose chase.

Of the two, I think I like the second better. The pacing seems better, and the ending more satisfying. And the sequence where Donald’s conscience begins to nag at him is excellently done. Gladstone comes off as much more of a jerk than normal in this story, but it's his arrogance that allows Donald and the boys to have the final word.

“The Sunken City” isn't bad, just kind of middle of the road by Carl Barks standards, possibly because Atlantis was a location he couldn't really research as he did for his other adventure tales. The idea of Uncle Scrooge intentionally boosting the rarity of a coin is a good one, and it plays well. I just wish the second half of the story was as strong as the first.

I’m kind of curious if this was originally intended as two seperate shorter volumes? I note that “Luck of the North” has its own introductory essay and cover art. Anyway, as always with Carl Barks, highly recommended!