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I freely admit to loving comic books, but watch who you're callin' a fanboy.

Even though I'm not a real huge fan, I'll use Batman to illustrate my point.

If the past 20 years of comics are any indication, true fanboys really enjoy seeing Batman as a brooding jerk — a loner who knows all sorts of cool martial arts moves.

If he had a personal soundtrack, it'd be an endless loop of Evanescence.

Me?

I'll take Adam West.

The high-camp, fake-hipster Batman.

But I'm guessing I'm in the minority.

So in their rush to pick up any one of 587 monthly titles starring mutants, most fanboys last week presumably met a comic like "Teen Titans: The Lost Annual" with a collective shrug.

Heck, DC Comics didn't even have much faith in the one-off,

64-page comic — and they published it.

Before its release last week, DC initially canceled the book in 2003, deeming it "too weird."

If that's not reason enough to devote an entire column to it, I don't know what is.

But for my money ($4.99), it's also an insanely fun read.

For starters, it's definitely going to appeal to a minority — those types whose CD collections include compilations of obscure '60s rock. (I'm thinking Texas surf bands and Dutch garage rock, which, FYI, actually is known as nederbeat.)

For the two of you still reading, the story shakes out like this:

Set in that most swingin' of decades, the Teen Titans discover that President John F. Kennedy actually is an alien shape-shifter.

Maybe DC was half-right.

But, really, it's no weirder than the olden days of comics themselves, when Superman might save the world one issue, turn into a baby the next and then start a dance craze like the Krypton Crawl after that.

That's what this "Teen Titans" story aims for — to be a total throwback.

For the sake of authenticity, the story is by Bob Haney, the guy who wrote the earliest Titans stories back in 1966.

He passed away in 2004, a year after this thing was supposed to come out, at age 78.

Artist Jay Stephens, creator of the Saturday morning cartoon "Tutenstein," does a cool job of channeling the Silver Age of comic art, but with a contemporary edge.

The classic '60s lineup of the Teen Titans, by the way, collected all the kid sidekicks of the era on one team.

We're talking Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl and Green Arrow's Speedy.

Anyway, where were we?

The real JFK has been brain-washed and whisked off to some distant planet inhabited by blue-skinned aliens who look like the Beatles.

Pre-"Sgt. Pepper," of course.

There, he's seen as a guy who can lead the aliens to victory in a never-ending war "nobody can remember the reasons for."

I won't give away the ending, but let's just say it's entirely possible JFK is still out there somewhere.

OK.

Anybody still with me?

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.