Mystery Solved!

About a month ago, I asked visitors to the blog whether they'd ever seen a Guardian action figure with the suit's colours reversed.  The character wore such a version of his uniform in issues 90 to 100 or so of the original Alpha Flight series.

In addition to making me aware of the Mego-style Guardian action figure that I posted about a few days ago, Sam Noir located the picture below for me.

It is identified on this page as a variant of the Toyfare mail-in exclusive from the late 90's (seen at right).

The website to which Sam directed me seems awfully familiar, though the specific action figure does not (I thought the one I'd seen was leaner).  I believe that I probably came across that site at some point while looking for an answer to my inquiry, but being that it is dedicated to custom action figures, I probably dismissed it.  I did not believe that the action figure I saw in 1998 was a custom, so probably that site did not seem likely to be helpful.

I now see that "flip" Guardian is specifically identified as a variant and not a custom on the site.  The only thing that caused me to still have some doubt was the packaging.  I had read that the Toyfare exclusive came in a plain white box.  My recollection of the action figure I'd seen was that the packaging was far more professional looking.  But honestly, the most likely scenario is that my memory is wrong.

I also recall (and mentioned earlier) that the action figure seemed unusually costly, and that would be consistent with a rare, variant mail-in exclusive toy.

So thank you Sam, I believe you nailed it and answered a question that had been on the back of my mind for about 15 years. :-)