Nope, not a joke:

Acclaimed writer Mark Waid and fan favorite artist Patrick Olliffe present Stephen Colbert, a candidate for the U.S. Presidency in the Marvel Universe, teaming up with Marvel’s most iconic crime fighter. What could bring these two together? And what will it mean for both their futures?

To answer your questions, Marvel.com, I would say that “what it means for their futures” is that Colbert will continue being awesome and winning Emmys and Spider-Man will enjoy some brief buzz on blogs like ours before being again only receiving attention from comics aficionados until the fourth Spider-Man movie comes out and we all complain about it.

And “what brings them together” is, I don’t know, desperation on the part of the printed comics industry? Or possibly The Rhino.

(p.s. – “Amazing Spider-Man” is only on issue #573? How are they not in the billions at this point??)