The tragic Brooklyn retiree killed by an alleged racist nut in Union Square was an uber-comic-book fan so beloved by that community that he was once even included in a comic book.
“He was a sweet man — I used to see him every Wednesday at the comic shop Heroes Hideout in Brooklyn on Nostrand Avenue,’’ said well-known comic-book artist Jimmy Palmiotti of victim Jeffrey Babbitt, 62.
Palmiotti told The Post that he was so taken by nice-guy Babbitt that he once drew him into a crowd scene in one of his comic books in the 1990s.
“It was always fun for us to put our friends in the books in the backgrounds as a nod to them,’’ he said Tuesday. “[Babbitt was] happy to be in it.”
Babbitt — a former train conductor who cared for his ailing, 94-year-old mother in their Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, apartment — was taken off life support and died Monday.
He had gone into a coma after being randomly beaten by hate-spewing maniac Lashawn Marten, 31, around 3 p.m. last Wednesday, authorities said.
Before the attack, Marten, who is black, was overheard saying he was going to “f–k up’’ the next white person he saw, officials said.
Marten appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday to get a new lawyer to handle the expected upgraded charge of murder against him.
Meanwhile, Babbitt’s mother, Lucille, who suffers from dementia, remained at Bellevue Hospital waiting for a social worker to help her get a home-health aide to care for her, a family friend said.
“She’s obviously upset, and she’s going to miss him — I’m going to miss him,’’ said neighbor Robert Pizzimenti, who ID’d Babbitt’s body for the mother at the morgue.
Babbitt’s father is dead, and his only sibling, a sister, also died about a year ago — after her brother tried to save her by giving his bone marrow to her in a transplant operation, Pizzimenti said.
“He was a sweetheart of a man,’’ said Tony Bianci, manager of the Halloween Adventure store in the East Village, where Babbitt used to buy hoards of fairy figurines.
“I was talking to him the day he died. He came into the store, and I said, ‘Oh, are you in here for some spider webs [for a train set]?’ And he said he just wanted to look around and see if there were any new fairies.”
Forbidden Planet comic-store manager Jeff Ayers said the shop will be “retiring’’ Babbitt’s subscription box where they stored his regular orders.
“We’re going to keep it empty and not give it to anyone else,’’ Ayers said. “I think he’d be honored.”
Comic-book illustrator and author Billy Tucci called Babbitt someone who “wouldn’t harm a fly.
“You talk about just a sweet, gentle soul,’’ Tucci said. “I betcha he heard the guy screaming, but he just kept walking by thinking, ‘I’m not going to bother him.’
“It’s just heartbreaking.”
Additional reporting by Rebecca Rosenberg