Jeremy, Either you don’t understand the question or I don’t understand your answer. Your last sentence mentions outputting the current issue title.
What amandarb was asking about (and me too) is that the sidebar displays a small print categorical header “current issue” above and below the default image BUT the text is for the archived issue (which is correct; the widget is working to call and display that).
What I want to know and I think the first poster wants to know is how to either get rid of that small print current issue header or make it agree with the archived date.