The Teen Titans would be used for good considering the group’s popularity in trying to combat teenage drug use and problems affecting society at the time (and still affecting society today).
TITLE: The New Teen Titans vol. 1, issue #26
YEAR: December 1982
COMPANY: DC Comics
Writer/Co-Creators/Artist: Marv Wolfman and George Perez
Embellisher: Romeo Tanghal
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Adrienne Roy
Editor: Len Wein
For such a long while, the characters of the Teen Titans were off in space fighting and with issue #26, the issue marked the group finally returning home back to Earth, Dick wanting to take the next step forward with Kory in their relationship and then we are shown how children are running away from their family.
May it be because of bad people they hooked up with, something bad happening at their home or some trouble which made them want to leave home.
We see one boy scared to stay home because he got many D’s on his report card, another boy who doesn’t want to listen to his parents and wants to live his own life under his own terms and do what they want, while a teenage girl is pregnant and her unhelpful father disowns her and tells her never to come back home.
We then see that same boy from the beginning of the issue now spaced out, high on some drug and demanding money from a DA and threatening him with a knife. As Dick and Kory watch from a distance, while they wonder if they should step in and help, they let the District Attorney Adrian Chase handle things on his own and in the process, the boy runs off into the street onto oncoming traffic and is killed.
We start to learn how crime is increasing in the city, meanwhile Logan confronts a troublemaker named Terra and as she threatens police, Logan tries to stop her from hurting anyone.
Meanwhile, at school, Raven senses someone’s pain nearby and discovers a pregnant teenage girl named Lizzie (same girl from the beginning of the issue) who is hurt physically and emotionally.
As Raven and Cyborg take Lizzie to a runaway center, we see another boy spying on a wealthy drug kingpin and when he is spotted, he is chased down by the thugs.
As the Titans return back home after coming back from the runaway center, the boy who was running is seen laying on the ground and bleeding in Victor’s (Cyborg) apartment, possibly dead.
If anything, The New Teen Titans did something that a lot of comics didn’t want to do and that was to use the comic book platform to combat real problems that were and still are happening in the world. Teenage drug use, teenage pregnancy and how teenage runaways were recruited and how it was a revolving door.
Granted, it was an issue that a lot of people didn’t see coming, considering the Titans were in outerspace for awhile and their first battle on Earth were drug pushers.
But the Teen Titans would be used for good considering the group’s popularity, even doing an anti-drug PSA in the early ’80s and also collaborated with Keebler for a three-issue anti-drug comic series in cooperation with the President’s Drug Awareness Campaign.