The true horrors of the Pokémon universe have been speculated on in a host of dark fan theories, but in one Rick and Morty comic, the iconic duo expose just how disturbing the world of Pokémon really is. In the 2017 miniseries Rick and Morty: Pocket Like You Stole It, based on the wildly popular phone game Pocket Mortys, Morty and his grandfather’s multiversal variants are engaged in a “Poké-battle” type of competition, leading to Mortys experiencing horrors akin to actual war crimes.
The jump from cute childhood game to horrible torture isn’t actually that much of a leap, with Pokémon having essentially always been a cartoon twist on dog fighting. Once the series introduced the idea of endless Ricks and Mortys with wildly different forms and abilities – with many gathered in one place on the Citadel – it was only a matter of time until a game like Pocket Mortys and comic series like Pocket Like You Stole It explored what would happen if the (almost) heartless Ricks of the multiverse decided to see whose Morty is strongest through direct competition.
Rick and Morty: Pocket Like You Stole It confirms that, to no one’s surprise, the Ricks of the multiverse have found a way to capitalize on the never-ending possibilities of the universe’s Mortys, using them to fight against each other purely for their sadistic entertainment. Pocket Like You Stole It – from Tini Howard, Marc Ellerby and Katy Farina – follows a “plain Morty” from Earth C-594 escaping from his vicious Rick and setting out on an adventure to save the captured and tortured Mortys, such as Mer-Morty, Ants in His Eyes Morty, Maybe Evil Morty, and so many more. Along the way, Morty uncovers even more parallels between his experiences and Pokémon, with Mortys being kept in “Mortyballs” and the entire enterprise ending with a fight with the Council of Ricks, eerily similar to the Elite Four in Pokémon.
The five-part Pocket Like You Stole It shows some of the truly demented horrors of the Pokémon world, with some Mortys starving to death, being kept imprisoned and beaten, and forced to fight for survival or love. Of course, these fights are made all the worse because it is, quite literally, a grandfather forcing his grandson to fight, sometimes to the death. But while these events get their own Rick and Morty spin, they’re also true of Pokémon, where the titular Pocket Monsters are also depicted as having deep relationships with their trainers and even being injured in battle.
Pocket Like You Stole It ultimately reveals that the abuse of Mortys is a tactic used by the Council of Ricks to keep the citizens of the Citadel distracted, and not something even the average Rick would choose to do without prompting, addressing the longstanding question of exactly how and why the Pokémon world came to base its economy and society on monster battles (a question answered by the popular Pokémon War theory.) Rick and Morty: Pocket Like You Stole It tells a story of history repeating itself, and oppressive cycles never being truly broken, all while playfully alluding to the horrors of the Pokémon universe.