Yes, it is meta. Wally Sage in this comic is "alternate reality me" of Grant Morrison, who became a musician instead of a writer. Much of the subject material deals with his own experiences (somewhat altered) and feelings regarding superhero comics.
Though I will point out this was not the first time he's touched the matter, or the first time he's said that superheroes are more real than we are. But it is the first time he put to words the underlying theme of his superhero fiction, that before The Bomb was The Bomb, it was only an idea, and how he feels the same *must* apply to superheroes for the sake of the future (as he quite accurately lays it out, ours is a world where there are supervillains but no superheroes).
In a way, Flex Mentallo is a preface to his full treatise (one critic quite accurately described Flex Mentallo as "comic book bible" once) he'd write down in Supergods.
The most meta comic ever existed! That, or Grant Morrisson sniffed too much glue.
Glue? Pffft. During the time he wrote this that wouldn't probably even faze him.
Anyway, poll description time!
Animal Man was Grant Morrison's breakthrough series, and still THE definitive Fourth Wall comic book story (fact: In Animal Man the metafictional relationship between the protagonist and YOU is serious fucking business, not a joke). The series is about Buddy Baker, a 30-something C-list superhero and family man who decides to quit his job as a stuntman and try being a superhero as a serious career choice. Soon thereafter he ends up as the superhero who fights for animal rights after an awakening experience during his first adventure. It's easy to tell that it's a Grant Morrison comic, all the standard elements are in place already (pacifist hero, humane characters, emotional engagement, intelligent plots, metafiction, and lots and lots of talking). Animal Man is a standard entry in lists of best comics ever written. It'll be a longer Let's Read, half the length of Doom Patrol.
Superman: Red Son is an Elseworlds DC comic about a world where a lone rocket from a long-gone world carrying a baby boy crashlands on farmland and is raised by the locals... In a collective farm in the Soviet Ukraine. The strange visitor from another world grows to become the champion of the common worker, fighting a never-ending battle for Stalin, Socialism and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact! This is generally known as "that one great comic Mark Millar wrote." The comic is three prestige issues long, and would take a single update. The poll's purpose is to see if you want Red Son or to skip straight to Animal Man.
