A lot of my collecting is nostalgia-based so I tend to know a lot about the stories behind each figure I buy. Sometimes, however, I collect things I know nothing about just because it looks like a cool toy (especially if they are six inch scale and well-articulated). Fortnite figures are definitely the latter scenario for me, so bear that in mind as we take a look at the Legendary Series Jonesy!
Robo has a nice phrase when talking about cool toys for properties he knows nothing about that I’m going to copy here: Matt don’t know Fortnite. I have gleaned from Robo and Preternia.com that it’s a shooter game, the characters dab, and call their backpacks “back bling” and that’s about the extent of it for me. I’m not judging, I don’t think I’m better than the material, I just like to be up front when I’m not knowledgeable about the property.
The Legendary series is in that sweet, sweet six inch scale that I love and I picked up wave one, mostly because the suited playing card guys seemed like they would make good generic baddies for my Marvel Legends. They also had a skull-face guy, which is another one of my collecting weaknesses.
Jonesy is from wave 2 which has trickled out a little on Amazon, but I saw a bunch with a release of wave 1 at Wal-Mart and had to pick this guy up. He’s got a great GI Joe vibe, so I thought he might be useful to me as a six inch scale GI Joe stand-in.
Jonesy comes in a large, white window box similar to a Marvel Legends box (white seems to be the trending color for these boxes lately, huh?). The window is really huge and shows off the plethora of accessories nicely. Jonesy comes with a pick axe, a rifle, two extra face plates, a clinger grenade, a med kit, and a back pack.
The pick axe seems bizarrely huge to me, and even though the game exaggerates scale, this seems way oversized. The handle is a little thick, so the figure doesn’t always grip it solidly.
Maybe there is a super pick axe power-up or something. I’ve also seen art of Jonesy with the axe on his back and you can kind of get that look by slipping it under the strap, though I worry a bit about stretching that plastic out.
The back pack plugs securely via peg into the figure’s back. It’s got a lot of nice detail in the sculpting and a few different paint applications that give it a more detailed feel.
The med kit is a cool inclusion. I like that they add the stuff you pick up in the game as an accessory. It has a couple of holes on the side that aren’t in the game model. The best I can tell is that I think they are meant to help the figures hold it.
The rifle has some cool detail to it, a good metallic finish on parts, and a nice wash that ties it all together. It’s a well-painted little accessory and fits well on the figure.
The clinger grenade baffled me for a second. I honestly thought it was a mace built from a toilet plunger, so I had to look it up to figure out it’s meant to be a sticky bomb. Again, the sculpting detail and paint is well done here and I admire the effort to include unique items from the game.
The face plates are just fun. Yes, it does interrupt the flow of the head sculpting for the face plate seam, but I had a good time swapping different expressions. Jonesy can go from regular smirking, to extra hard smirking, and then abject terror.
It does look super bizarre without the face plate on there, so pray you don’t lose those. They seem to stay on well.
The face plates swap with Rabbit Raider from wave one for some more options for your Rabbit Raider Jonesy needs. The eye painting is really simplistic, but that kind of works for me with this line
The sculpting does a good job capturing the animated feel of the game model and artwork that I’ve seen. Nothing is jumping out to me as off, though I’m no expert. The proportions feel right and the articulation is well integrated into the body. The body is re-use of the purple skull trooper from wave 1, but that makes total sense since that’s a skin variant of this character.
Articulation is pretty impressive and matches what you see with Marvel Legends for the most part with:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Single hinged toes, pecs, and grip
- Ball and socket upper-torso
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Swivel waist, boots, biceps, and thighs
The return of the toe joint and grip hinge are weird flash back to early Marvel Legends for me, but I like it. They work okay here for the most part, but like I mentioned earlier, the hands can struggle to solidly hold the larger accessory.
There is no real ball jointed movement at the head, and while it looks up well, the down movement is limited by the scarf. The ball and socket at the upper torso is somewhat limited, but movement range is otherwise good. I think I might have liked an up/down hinge for the gun hand, but it works pretty well as is.
The paint is solid. There isn’t a lot of wash or drybrushing outside of the rifle, but they make good use of the plastic colors and sharp applications to get the appropriate details in and match the heightened color pallet from the game. The camo is impressive and there looks to be some printed wear on his boots and boot armor.
I think the plastic for the skin is a little shinier than I would like, but it’s especially nice to see that paint is applied on all the accessories and that there is little spill or bleeding.
Overall Jonesy is a solid figure with a good number of accessories and he’s fun to pose and play with. I’m not sure the animated styling is going to fit in with my original vision for him as a six-inch scale GI Joe figure, but that’s not a knock on the quality at all as it’s very good on it’s own merits. I think Jazwares has done something special with this line, and I’m impressed how each figure seems to be packed with articulation and accessory value.
