The New Teen Titans #48 (October 1988)

I don’t really remember what happens in this issue since I read it months ago. I guess Hammer and Sickle convince Red Star to betray the Titans because the Cold War. Then Starfire is used as leverage and then Cyborg saves her life and then he tells Sarah Charles that he can’t handle a long distance relationship because he needs to spend a lot of time pouting about how his life isn’t working out the way he’d planned. Unless this is when they decide to go for the long distance thing! I don’t think that happens yet. Whatever. What I do know is that the Titans once again don’t do anything heroic because they’re the cause of all the problems. At least their friend Red Star is and that’s close enough.

Just think! About a year after this, the Cold War was over and all of these “Russians are horribly slimy jerks” stories turned into “some horribly slimy Russian jerks just can’t face reality and are still acting like the Cold War isn’t over because we need villainous caricatures other than Middle Eastern terrorists (who we always make sure are from fictional countries we totally made up!).”

We're nearing the 50th issue when the Teen Titans become the Adult Titans so I'm going to just stop keeping track of how unheroic they are. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they completely mature after Issue #50 and constantly do heroic shit every issue. Maybe even two or three times per issue!