As we've mentioned, City of Heroes will have a presence at the San Diego Comic-Con, which kicks off later this week and runs throughout the weekend. In preparation for the event, the City of Heroes Online Community Relations Team has started a brand new Twitter page to keep readers informed about all of the events going on at the convention. There's only four posts so far, so now's a good time to add the page to your feed.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Twitter page announcement is this sentence: "You never know what could happen...we just might go tweet happy and you could benefit BIG TIME (especially if you're at the show with us)." So it looks like CoH fans should definitely check out this Twitter page during Comic-Con.

Oh, and it seems Paragon Studios plans to start an official Twitter page very soon, so keep an eye out for that as well. Members of the ZAM team will be at the San Diego Comic-Con, and you can check ZAM.com for news from the floor.

Paragon Studios has just announced that the next content update for City of Heroes will be Issue 16: Power Spectrum, and as the name implies, you'll get the ability to color customize your powers.

Of course, that's not all Issue 16 has to offer. Powerset Proliferation will put more powersets in the hands of Archetypes who couldn't use them previously, such as giving Defenders access to Assault Rifle and Traps. And for players who prefer more of a challenge, you'll be able to set your difficulty level to be regarded as a specific team size. A solo player can even use this function to see how tough they are on various maps by setting his or her difficulty level higher.

You can read the overview of Issue 16 after the jump.

The City of Heroes team decided the upcoming Going Rogue expansion needed some new signature characters to show players that it will be possible to cross the line between good and evil. To that end, they have introduced Desdemona, a demon summoning Mastermind who questions her evil ways, and Maelstrom, a gun-toting hero turned villain.

Senior Lead Designer Matt "Positron" Miller has written a dev diary entry discussing how the two characters were created. They were purposefully given power sets being introduced in Going Rogue to show players Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning. Desdemona and Maelstrom have actually been in the works for more than a year and were mentioned on the online calendar that was released during the game's fourth anniversary in 2008.

The next dev diary will focus on Tyrant, whose bio still says "coming soon." You can read Positron's full entry below.

It looks like a major adversary is returning to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, but thankfully players have a week's notice to prepare for the assault. The Rikti are planning an attack that is scheduled to begin on Friday, July 17 at 11 a.m. EDT, and they won't let up until Sunday, July 19 at 11:59 p.m.

The powers of all heroes and villains will be required to take down the threat of the Rikti. Are you ready to go to war?

If you enjoy creating stories using the Mission Architect system in City of Heroes, you may be happy to hear that additional Mission Architect story slots are can now be purchased. You can buy one for $5.99, two for $9.99 or five for $19.99. There's a maximum of eight slots available per game account.

The extra slots can be purchased by entering the game's store through the character selection screen. According to the announcement, "existing rules applicable to inherent story slots also apply to purchased story slots." That means one of your slots will become available if one of your published stories earns the Dev Choice award, but it also means a slot will be unavailable if one of your stories is suspended.

As we've reported, Issue 15: Anniversary went live this week in City of Heroes. Well, the launch trailer has been released at GameTrailers so you can check out the return of the villainous 5th Column group and its leader, Riechsman.

Also, it has been announced that City of Heroes will have a presence at the San Diego Comic-Con from July 22-26. The MMO will be features at booth number 5005 for any players who plan to attend the convention. There's a ton of stuff planned, including a CoH panel on Saturday, July 25. You can even have your character drawn by Paragon Studios conceptual artist David Nakayama throughout the event. More information on the CoH Comic-Con festivities can be found below.

Issue 15: Anniversary is now live on the City of Heroes servers and showcases the return of the 5th Column villain group. You can join up with the Villain Strikeforce or the Hero Taskforce to participate in new missions that re-introduce the group to the game.

As the title suggests, this issue honors the fifth anniversary of City of Heroes, which was celebrated in April. In addition to the new 5th Column missions, the issue includes some new character customization options, including costumes, costume change emotes, and more than 20 new faces.

There's also been some updates to the Mission Architect system. You can read more about Issue 15 on the official overview page or below.

The latest issue of "Developer Diary" (the City of Heroes development team's behind-the-scenes blog) in Issue #15 features an interesting look at some of the new character customization options. Dubbed "A Paragon of Customization" and written by Christopher Bruce, Senior Lead Animator/VFX Artist, the diary entry highlights a couple new costume sets designed by Cheryl Austin, the newest member of the company's character artist team. Also included are more than 20 new face textures, a feat that the dev team hasn't taken on since City of Villains launched, according to Bruce.

"While our options for individual costume pieces and sets have continued to expand over the years," Bruce says, "our selection of faces hasn't received the same amount of attention. Her goal was to create a set of new face textures that were a bit more subtle and realistic and while also working well across our full range skin tones."

The entry also hints at a few more goodies like new "costume change emotes," and features a gallery of pictures showcasing the new costumes and a bunch of new face textures. Check it out!

The T-Shirt logo contest that was held to celebrate the fifth anniversary of City of Heroes is over, and Paragon Studios has chosen the winners. You can view the top three entries here.

The first place logo, which can be seen after the jump, will actually be made into a limited run of actual T-shirts! The team will let fans know how to order one when they become available. Would you buy a shirt with that image on it to show off your City of Heroes pride?

The open beta testing phase for Issue 15: Anniversary has begun, and all you need to do to participate is join the test server so you can celebrate the return of The 5th Column.

You can find out more about Issue 15 in the overview or patch notes. You can also check out a developer diary entry from Senior Designer Bruce Harlick on the game's fifth anniversary and the content update at Ten Ton Hammer.