Luck of the North, also known by the title of The Golden Iceberg, is a comic story written and drawn by Carl Barks. It features Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck and Gladstone Gander.
Plot[]
Donald Duck, sick of his cousin Gladstone Gander bragging about his luck, tries to trick Gladstone into leaving Duckburg for a while, sending a phony map to a "lost uranium mine" his way. When it turns out the coordinates Donald wrote on the map are in the middle of an Arctic wasteland, though, Donald begins to have second thoughts about sending his overconfident layabout relative in such peril, and off to the polar regions he goes, with Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck in tow, to undo his mistake and bring Gladstone back home!
Continuity[]
- This story introduces the Old Viking Ship and the valuable documents it conceals about Vikings' early settlement of America. Barks returned to those themes in The Golden Helmet (1952), though the circumstances of the Drakkar and the parchment at the beginning of the 1952 story are somewhat difficult to reconcile with the ending of Luck of the North.
An older Donald looks in on his argument with Gladstone in Lost on Memory Lane.
- The comic story Lost on Memory Lane (2011) sees Donald Duck revisiting memories of his past adventures thanks to a new invention of Gyro Gearloose's. Luck of the North is one of three Barks story referenced in the process, with the confrontation of Gladstone Gander and Donald for ownership of the Drakkar redrawn by Massimo Fecchi in the process.
Behind the scenes[]
First printed in 1949 in Four Color Comics #256, this story was reprinted in The Best of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge #2, Walt Disney Comic Digest #44, Best Comic Series #1, Gladstone Giant Album #2, The Biggest Big Walt Disney's Comics #1 and Donald Duck Classics #1, as well, of course, as in the various Carl Barks Libraries.
It was also printed in English in the Australian Giant #14, Donald Duck #50 and Donald Duck #155, and serialized in the British Mickey Mouse Weekly around number #778 (precise data is missing) under the new title of The Golden Iceberg.