Comics Review: Rick and Morty: Pocket Like You Stole It #1

Just a reminder I bought this comic with money. I have the receipt!

Going off the high of the recently confirmed release date of its third season and the hype carrying people into it, we have a new Rick and Morty comic, this time based off the related mobile app Pocket Mortys. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically the exact same model as the Pokemon games, but with Rick as all the trainers and Morty as all of the “mons”. That’s it. It’s actually so shameless in its ripping off of that type of game that only a show like Rick and Morty could ever really pull it off. I actually played a lot of Pocket Mortys when it first came out, and it’s a pretty fun time sink, but mainly because it’s Pokemon, which is already fun, plus tons of microtransactions that drain your bank account like nobody’s business. That’s why I vowed to never waste money on a mobile game ever again…until Pokemon Go came out about a year ago. Five maxed out credit cards, three mortgages, and twenty pounds of smuggled cocaine later, and I have finally caught them all. Until they put in Gen 3.

But we’re here to talk about this comic! Which starts with two Mortys, one plain and one mermaid, trying to survive in a hole they’ve dug to hide. But Mermaid Morty is quickly dying from dehydration, so the Morty Classic goes out to get food and water. Sadly, he is soon captured by Rick in a hunting jacket, who takes him back to his base full of other captured Mortys. Morty tries distracting Rick with meta-commentary on the situation in which they currently find themselves, giving himself enough time to escape. He manages to remove the mind control chip and runs into Ants In My Eyes Morty, a deep cut reference to a gag from a Season 1 episode. The Mortys return to the “Zoobliette” of their captured brethren, but are cut off by Rick, who orders them back in the cages. But when Morty refuses, Rick oddly lets him leave, though Morty refuses to let this slide. In an attempt to inspire rebellion, he removes the chip from Ant Eyes Morty…only to see him bleed out and only convince the other Mortys that he’s trying to kill them.

Defeated in all ways, Morty flees in search of a place he can just be and really find himself. As well as six other versions of himself, including a samurai, fusion chef, and morbidly obese version. To be continued!

So, besides the expected hilarious and clever writing, the main thing worth mentioning here would be the Pokemon commentary, which is also what the app is mainly about besides riffing. The view that Pokemon is more or less a game about cockfighting is not an especially revolutionary idea and has likely been around since at least the early 2000’s when kids growing up with the games and show started to enter their teens and have very cynical outlooks about cartoons. But it’s used pretty interestingly here to showcase Rick as a master manipulator of all Mortys, especially the main one who fancies himself a liberator. Where this’ll take him, it’s hard to say, but I’m definitely interested enough to follow the remaining four issues.