Obama To Meet Spider-Man

Updated 8:00 PM EDT, Thu, Jan 8, 2009

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Barack Obama is about to be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America – but first, he’s got a date with a certain wall-crawler.

The President-elect will appear on a special Inauguration Day cover of issue No. 538 of Marvel’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” on January 14 and meets Spidey inside the issue, with the pair even sharing a fist-bump. According to Marvel’s Web site, the story will find Spider-Man attempting to stop one of his oldest foes from interfering with the inauguration.

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“It was a natural after we learned the new president is a Spider-Man fan,” Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada told USA Today. “We thought, ‘Fantastic! We have a comic-book geek in the White House.’”

Obama told Entertainment Weekly during the campaign that his favorite superheroes are Spider-Man and Batman, and according to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, he’s a Spidey collector.

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“We do our best to be completely non-partisan and treat presidents with respect,” Quesada told USA Today. “This is not so much a pro-Obama statement but a tip of the hat to having a Spider-Man fan in the White House.”

The issue will be available for $3.99 at local comic book stores.

Other presidents and real-life events have made their way into comics over the years. Spider-Man dealt with the aftermath of September 11, while John F. Kennedy appeared in a 1963 issue of DC’s “Action Comics” alongside Superman. And 1940s comic books had heroes such as Captain America and the Human Torch facing off against the Axis powers during World War II.

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