Little Simao Meco has three favorite superheroes — The Flash, and the pair of Queens surgeons who gave him a new face.
On Thursday, the 9-year-old got to hug all three at a celebration of a successful, life-changing operation to fix his rare facial deformity.
“I feel better,” Meco said, smiling Thursday at Cohen Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park alongside the “Scarlet Speedster.”
“I can see better,” said the boy, who has recovered completely from the Jan. 8 surgery and will return to school in New Jersey on Friday.
Meco was born in Portugal with Tessier craniofacial clefts — a condition that left abnormal separations in his face and skull.
His right eye pointed off to the side, impairing his vision. He needed to wear an eye patch on his left eye. Sleeping, even breathing caused him difficulty.
At school in Hillside, NJ, kids would taunt him. A kid on the bus called him “monster.”
He retreated into a world of video games and TV.
So it made great sense that as his new face was unveiled, the “Scarlet Speedster,” his favorite fantasy character, sped over to surprise and congratulate him.
“How’s it going, buddy?” Flash asked the gobsmacked tyke at a press conference at the hospital.
“I have a gift for you,” the red-masked superhero added, handing over a new Xbox game.
The two laughed their way through a few “fast-run” and “muscle man” poses.
“Think about the long-term impact of having a facial deformity,” Cohen neurosurgeon Dr. Mark Mittler told reporters at the press conference.
“Think about the impact in terms of employment, relationships, friendships, socialization,” said Mittler, whose job during the surgery was to open the boy’s skull and move the brain back, away from the eye sockets.
That allowed pediatric plastic surgeon Dr. James Bradley — one of only five experts in the world trained to do the surgery — to essentially break down Meco’s face to put it back together again.
The hospital did the surgery for free.
“He says that now he’s handsome,” his grateful mom, Lisa, 35, told reporters.
“Of course for me, he always was,” she said. “He was handsome, now he’s even more.
“I’m very proud of him,” she added.
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano