The new issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man" is hitting shelves Wednesday, and gracing the cover is the soon-to-be U.S. commander-in-chief -- or should we say geek-in-chief -- Barack Obama.

In a recent story in the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper, it was revealed that the president-elect is a fan of the Webslinger because he can relate to the inner turmoil Peter Parker often feels about his alter-ego.

That inspired the creative team at Marvel Comics to feature Obama in issue #583, "Spidey Meets the President."

"My bosses came to me and said is there anything we can do with this? And we thought well, maybe we'll put him on our cover as a nod to the new comic-fan-in-chief, and that grew into a five-page story," said Stephen Wacker, editor of "The Amazing Spider-Man".

The story takes place at Obama's inauguration, when the president-elect is forced to deal with a challenge of super-villain proportions before he even takes the oath of office.

Wacker told CTV's Canada AM the plot gets exciting when a second Barack Obama shows up at the inauguration ceremony, just as Obama is about to be sworn in.

"Peter Parker is there covering the inauguration for his newspaper, taking pictures, and he sees that there are two Barack Obamas," Wacker said.

"He has to change into Spider-Man and get involved, and somehow figure out who the real one is."

The cover of the comic features a large picture of a smiling Obama, with an inverted Spider-Man snapping pictures and quipping: "Hey, if you get to be on my cover, do I get to be on the dollar bill?"

Wacker said he wanted the issue to hit shelves before Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, which meant the story and artwork had to be complete in about a week -- from concept to final product.

"Our writer had about two hours to come up with some sort of story, he shot it back, I got it to an artist later in the day to get it started, I had another artist start working on the cover with Spidey and president Obama, and it came together fairly quickly," Wacker said.

It's not the first time a U.S. president, or in this case a president-elect, has been featured in the pages of a comic.

Former president Richard Nixon made cameos in both "Incredible Hulk" and "Fantastic Four" comics.

"What we tend to do at Marvel is as much as we can, reflect the world outside your window," Wacker said.

"So when the story calls for the president to appear in a book we will generally draw the actual president, the actual politician we are dealing with. This goes all the way back to the beginning of Marvel Comics in the 1960s."

He said Marvel stories are often political in nature, with super heroes and politicians interacting in various ways, and this is not likely to be Obama's final appearance in Spider-Man comics.

"We may not call him by name, he won't always be featured on the cover, but it's not unusual for the president to appear in the comics themselves," he said.