Young Justice: Phantoms is the title of the fourth season of Young Justice, preceded by Young Justice: Outsiders, and it is comprised of 26 episodes. It was announced on July 20, 2019 during the DC Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con.[1][2]
The first two episodes were made available as a special surprise from DC FanDome, on October 16, 2021.
On April 6, 2022, DC Comics announced Young Justice: Targets, a six-issue series that takes place after the finale of season four. Each issue will first be available on the DC Universe Infinite platform for 30 days before making their way to comic book shelves. Moreover, each issue includes a bonus story detailing previously unseen adventures from past seasons of the show. The first issue is slated to come out on June 14, 2022 on DC Universe Infinite, and will later be available in comic book stores on July 26.[3]
Miss Martian, Superboy and Beast Boy travel to Mars for M'gann and Conner's wedding. There, they find themselves amidst civil unrest stemming from racial prejudice and a murder mystery.
As of the time of the announcement, the season was already in production and the showrunners stated that it would focus on the core season one characters that fans already know and love.[4]
By October 2019, voice recording was already underway[5] and was completed by July 1, 2020.[6] The season was finalized on December 10, 2021[7] making up over two years, four months and 20 days to complete all 26 episodes.
COVID-19 pandemic
On September 12, 2020, Weisman stated in a Q&A session during DC FanDome that their team has been working from home on season four. Pre-production was still underway despite the COVID-19 pandemic, but voice recording was being done individually by voice actors rather than in group sessions.[8] Greg Weisman described the process at length:
“
The first half - or nearly half - of the season was done the way we always have, with group recordings predominantly, while picking up the occasional actor at a different time, based on availability.
About halfway through the season, we temporarily stopped recording because of the pandemic.
So in order to keep our board artists supplied with vocal tracks and working (from home), we began recording scratch tracks, using myself, Brandon, voice director Jamie Thomason, Talent coordinator Laura Lopez, editor Cris Mertens, and my wife and kids.
Then we began recording actors individually from home. Some of these actors have fantastic home studio set-ups. Others, well... not so much. We weren't video-conferencing with them, but we were audio-conferencing.
Then we switched from BangZoom Studios for our records to Atlas Oceanic Picture & Sound, which had a booth with a door that opened right into their parking lot. That way an actor could drive up and stay in their car until called for. Then they could walk right into the studio without any contact with any other human being. The engineer was in the control room, and the rest of us - including Jamie - were all listening in from our homes. Then when that actor was done, the booth would be sanitized before the next actor entered. Some of our performers still worked from home, but about half came to Atlas. It was always the choice of the actor.
As well as a poster for the season as a whole, posters were created for each of the six arcs within the season for use on HBO Max. Each poster was designed by Brandon Vietti, with finished line art by Christopher Jones and color by Jason Wright.[10]
The very next final battle for the planet Earth...
Audience viewership
On June 7, 2022, two days before the release of the season four finale, Greg Weisman claimed that the "numbers this season on HBO Max are stunningly good" and on that day he "saw numbers that indicated [they had] more views this year than any other animated super-hero series on ANY streaming service" and "even beat out a couple of prestige live-action super-hero series".[11]
