Kondor

Deadly gift to an ancient ruler. Handed down ruler-to-ruler through the centuries, the vengeful spirit known as Kondor is thought by many to be nothing more than an urban legend. Kondor was introduced in Chapter 2, Season 5 (the bounty hunter season). He apparently hails from Reality 42 and, according to Jonesy, is said to be able to grant any wish for revenge, no matter how dark or terrible. Nothing else is known about Reality 42, though given that Fortnite's realities tend to stick to a theme, it's possible that's where the Japanese-influenced Mega City dropped in from in Chapter 4. After all, Chapter 3's Ronin shares similar design elements to Kondor, and his "Ronin's Revenge" loading screen hinted at the introduction of Mega City more than a year and a half early. Kondor is a very odd character, and Hasbro made odd choices with him. His default state is a faceless guy in a fancily complex hoodie. Or something. But he has a built-in emote, Vengeful Wish, that sees him engulfed in a few swirls of smoke as he hovers and rotates, coming to rest as this cyborg ninja with a weird technological helmet. The two halves of the character look almost entirely unrelated to one another, even if they do both look cool on their own. When Epic Game sued Apple Inc. in 2020, a bunch of otherwise-confidential internal documents ended up being submitted to the court, which is how we know Kondor's cyber mode was inspired by a piece of art called "Urban Ninja Gangster" by artist Daniel Hahn. Epic certainly never mentioned the influence, and the odds of them actually paying him for his work are infinitesimal, but the least we can do as fans is acknowledge him. Like Punk, the figure's proportions seem weird, with stumpy legs and an overly long torso. We know from other reviews that Hasbro's plan for this line was to just take digital models from Epic and cut articulation into them, but Kondor definitely isn't this top-heavy in the game. He wears a shawl/scarf thing over body armor, has technological bracers, and then pseudo-suspenders hanging from his thighs - about the only feature that's shared with the base costume. There are two selectable colors for the costume: the standard is grey, while the "Wrath" version is more teal, with the cyborg versions following suit. This is the default, so the brightest parts (other than the white helmet) are the few spots of gold on the arms and legs. Naturally, I prefer the color we didn't get, because I'm just consistently out of luck. This isn't even the only figure that happened to me with! While the Victory Royale line lasted, you could at least count on good articulation. Having legs that are too short and a torso that's too long is slightly awkward, but not terribly so. Kondor has a barbell head, balljointed neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed chest, swivel/hinge waist, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel boots, and swivel/hinge ankles. There's some sort of piece around his waist - it's supposed to several layers of shirts worn under his bodyarmor, but here it's over everything else like a really wide belt - and that does limit the waist to an extent. Kondor includes a totally plain shotgun (despite him having his own Weapon Wrap in his set that would have looked great), the Spirit's Pact backpack, and his two swords, Oath & Sorrow. There are four red ninja stars sculpted into the backpack and a strap with a buckle hanging from the bottom, and the swords can store inside it when he's not holding them. Hasbro did a lovely job of bungling the Fortnite line. Kondor would have been a perfect candidate for making a two-pack, featuring both his designs at once, but instead, we get just the less-common one with an ill-proportioned sculpt. I'm not even going to complain about the colors, because that's just a "me" problem, not everyone else. I ended up getting this figure at Ross while trying to find that mythical "Speedia 500" Cosmos (no luck), and for $5.99, he's spectacular; he'd be less so for full price, but he's not bad enough to make us not wish this line had been a bigger success. -- 08/02/24

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