Young Justice may not be getting a fifth season.
According to known TVLine scooper Matt Webb Mitovich, Young Justice Season 5 is not currently in the cards for streamer HBO Max. "HBO Max from go had only ordered a single season of the onetime Cartoon Network and DC Universe series, and that plan has not changed," Mitovich wrote. "There are currently no plans for a Season 5, I am told."
Young Justice originally premiered on Cartoon Network in 2010, with its first season running through 2012. The network renewed the series for a second season, titled Young Justice: Invasion, which ran from 2012 to 2013. Young Justice was canceled by Cartoon Network in 2013 but found new life in 2019 with a third season, Young Justice: Outsiders, which ran on the now-defunct DC Universe streaming service. Amid DC Universe's shuttering, the show moved to HBO Max for its fourth season, Phantoms. The first half of the season was released on the streaming service in late 2021, and the second half began streaming in March 2022. The final installment of the 26-episode fourth season hit HBO Max on June 9.
Fans of Young Justice are already rallying to put pressure on HBO Max to reconsider the decision. Some have expressed disappointment at the prospect of the series being canceled a second time, especially when the Young Justice Season 4 finale offered several teasers for future storylines -- such as the ultimate fate of General Dru-Zod and his followers.
Young Justice being cancelled on a cliffhanger is something fans might have done well to expect, however. Series co-developer Greg Weisman has been adamant that Young Justice has no ending. "I keep saying over and over, IT NEVER ENDS," he wrote in 2021. "There will never be a 'proper ending' to [Young Justice]. Ever. So we'll either get more or we won't. Meanwhile, we have a gameplan for at least three more seasons figured out, and by the time we finished those, we'd probably have three more."
Just days before the release of Young Justice: Phantoms' finale, Weisman claimed the series' fourth season was performing well. "[O]ur numbers this season on HBO Max are stunningly good," he wrote. "Today, I saw numbers that indicated we have more views this year than any other animated super-hero series on ANY streaming service ... We even beat out a couple of prestige live-action super-hero series." Despite Young Justice's apparent popularity, however, Warner Bros. Discovery's seemingly volatile restructuring -- which led to the the highly anticipated Batgirl film's cancellation -- has made it difficult to predict which projects will survive the company's strategic shift when it comes to its DC content.
All four seasons of Young Justice are currently available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: TVLine