City of Heroes, Vol. 2

Beginning with the June 2005 issue, the comic book was published by Top Cow Productions,[1] written by noted comic book writer Mark Waid, and illustrated by newcomer David Nakayama. Unlike the previous volume, this series follows the adventures of the city's most illustrious supergroup, the Freedom Phalanx led by the Statesman.

Mark Waid wrote the first three issues of the new Top Cow comic. Starting with issue four,[2] Troy Hickman wrote a three-issue story arc entitled Smoke and Mirrors. This was followed up by Dan Jurgens, who wrote the next three-issue arc named Bloodlines.

As of City of Villains launch, the free comic book deal switched from being an actual comic book being mailed to you to being able to access all existing CoH comic books on the company's website. It's believed Cryptic did this not only to compensate for the lack of additional monthly fees for playing both CoH and CoV, but also to solve the problem of comic books getting lost in the mail. For a small additional fee (US$2 per issue), players could still get the actual comics sent by mail.

The comic was said to be converting from a monthly to bimonthly format after issue #15,[3] however, due to various delays, issues 15 and 16 turned up in late November 2006, four months behind schedule. This run of the comic book ended at issue #20.