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GREENSBORO -The latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man sold out across the Triad today. The web-slinging super-hero had a little help from a special guest star: President-elect Barack Obama.

In a back-up story in issue #583 Spider-Man saves the popular president-elect from a villainous imposter. Obama thanks the hero with a signature fist-bump.

After getting calls all week, local comic shops prepared for large crowds. Acme Comics (Video | Photos) on Lawndale Drive opened at 2 p.m. - after the new comics had arrived and they were ready for the rush. Their last copy was gone about 15 minutes after the doors opened.

"We were hoping we could get a copy," said Lena Harper of Greensboro, who came with her 8-year-old daughter and stood in a line stretching onto the sidewalk. "But we should have known to show up hours early, like at a movie premiere."

Harper and her daughter said they would buy a copy of the Barack Obama biography comic instead - and wait for the second printing of the issue.

There are two versions of the issue - one with a cover for the main story, and one with Obama on the cover. Only about 25 copies of the Obama cover version were available to non-subscribers in local comic shops today and customers were limited to one copy of the Obama cover. The reprints will all feature Obama on the cover, with a different colored background.

"Marvel Comics is going to press with a second printing right away, which is unusual," said Jermaine Exum, manager at Acme Comics.

Exum said his store usually orders between 90-100 copies of the monthly comic, but after hearing about the Obama guest-spot he ordered 176. It still wasn't enough.

"We've ordered 500 of the reprint and we could have them by next Wednesday," Exum said. "Everyone should be able to get one then."

Exum said the event was great for business - getting people who don't read comics into his store for the first time. Many of those who couldn't score a first-printing went home with the popular Barack Obama-as-Superman T-shirt or other Obama-related items. There was even a sign over the store's rack of Conan The Barbarian comics reading: "Obama's 'other' favorite comic."

At Parts Unknown on Spring Garden Street, owner John Hitchcock said the excitement reminds him of the rush to get the Spider-Man issue dealing with 9/11. He said he got more than 100 calls - mostly from people who aren't regular customers.

"They've been very aggressive," Hitchcock said. "I only ordered 25 because [Marvel Comics] didn't let us know Obama would be in it two-and-a-half months ago, when we had to order. So we're making sure everyone who subscribes to it gets their copy. Then we'll be selling them first come, first serve."

Martin Greene, 34, was lucky enough to get a first printing at Acme. He said he's going to read the story, then seal the issue for his daughter, who just turned two-years-old.

"This is like a piece of history she'll be able to have when she's older," Greene said. "Hopefully by then she won't even understand why the first black president was such a big deal, it will just seem normal. But we all know how important it is now."

Copies of the issue are already hot items online, where eBay sellers are listing them at as much as $40 - about ten times the cover price. The second printing of the book will have the Obama cover with a blue background.

This is not the first time a U.S. president has appeared in a Marvel comic. The company sets is super-heroes in the real world and presidents from Roosevelt to Clinton and Bush have all guest starred. But Obama's guest spot was a last-minute surprise put together when Marvel learned the president-elect is a Spider-Man fan and once collected the comic.

"How great is that? The commander in chief to be is actually a nerd in chief," said Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. "It was really, really cool to see that we had a geek in the White House. We're all thrilled with that."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.