During their search, both rival expeditions lose all modern equipment, and by the time they find the helmet they must try to reach Labrador's coast traveling like the Vikings did.

The helmet, an object of power, has the same effect on each of its successive owners: A cold glitter in their eyes betrays awakening greed and ambitions, as they become more ruthless, each of them in turn revealing the dreams of a would-be tyrant.

The idealistic museum director isn't interested in personal wealth, but changing North American culture and education to his own ideals, to the "benefit" of society.

Back at the museum after the adventure, Donald is again working as a guard, after all he decides to get acquainted with contemporary times and interest himself of the current exhibits that appeal to the masses.

Broke and in debt and facing years of stiff alimony at the age of 50 I chose to keep working, and I can recall one day when all the bad news struck me and I should have been heading for a bar, and instead I sat there like a zombie with a pad of paper and jotted down gags and plots and situations that seemed to pour into me from somewhere.

Rich Kreiner writes, "'The Golden Helmet' is a veritable symphony of the themes and elements that fired Carl Barks' imagination throughout his career.

As a rip-roaring adventure, it's a quest for an object of great value and power involving a race over treacherous territory to an exotic, unforgiving locale."

Azure Blue also appears in a cameo in Rosa's story "Return to Plain Awful", as one of several villainous characters trying to follow Scrooge McDuck to the Andes to search for square eggs.

Another sequel was written and drawn in 2002 by Massimo De Vita, called "Topolino e l'imperatore d'America" (Mickey Mouse and the Emperor of America).