Review by Frank Plowright

After a few volumes combining two 1960s issues of Uncle Scrooge per album, we’re now back to a single issue presented in oversize paperback format, but the numbering is no longer concurrent. For instance, Uncle Scrooge Adventures 36 presents Uncle Scrooge 37. That only lasts until Uncle Scrooge Adventures 39, when it’s back to two longer stories per album.

As Carl Barks continued on Uncle Scrooge, the exotic travelogue quests became less frequent, so ‘The Cave of Ali Baba’ is a comparative rarity for the 1960s. It’s an entertaining enough outing, but lacking the magic of comparable journeys earlier in the run.

Instead of setting up a purpose for Scrooge, Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie to be in Persia (now Iran), we join them already there with no reason offered for their presence. When they meet an archaeologist carrying rare tablets, Donald imagines locating the treasures of Ali Baba’s mysterious cave and is told of the giant Roc, an ancient extinct predatory bird large enough to swoop down and carry off a horse. An example duly appears, and the cave of Ali Baba is discovered, but it all transmits as somewhat random. Here Barks is a step ahead, having set up his surprising ending well, but although everything slots into place, it’s comfortable rather than extraordinary.

This is considerably disguised by the great cartooning. The ducks appear in a variety of poses and displaying a whole range of emotional responses, while Barks comes up with a great goofy design for the Rocs, deliberately awkward. His rocks are also worth noting, so simply created to form a landscape from so few lines.

Barks being restricted to nine pages for ‘Deep Down Doings’ sharpens the plot. Scrooge has located a ship that sunk with a precious cargo of pearls, and the problem becomes how to retrieve them without anyone else realising. Scrooge hasn’t anticipated the Beagle Boys hiding in a barrel on the docks and overhearing his every word. That sets up the problem, and its solved ingeniously in a more enjoyable story.

With these albums being long out of print, the best place to find both stories now is in the hardback Uncle Scrooge by Carl Barks: Cave of Ali Baba.