Morty is the Ghost-type specialist and Gym Leader of Ecruteak City. He awards the Fog Badge to trainers who beat him, and he's best known for his unconventional battle strategies—since Ghost Pokemon tend to lack raw physical power, he focuses on disabling opponents through confusion and fear tactics. He actually teaches classes on how to train Ghost types effectively.
In the anime, Morty shows up across three episodes. He first meets Ash, Misty, and Brock when they accidentally wander into the Burned Tower instead of his gym—his Ghost Pokemon had created fake fire illusions to scare people away, which turns out to be a pretty solid strategy. He introduces himself, tells them about Ho-Oh and Ecruteak's two towers, and is skeptical about Ash's claim of ever seeing the legendary bird. When Team Rocket kidnaps Pikachu and Togepi, he brings out his powerhouse Gengar to help.
Ash challenges him the next day. What gives Ash the edge is his Noctowl's Foresight move, which lets it see the Ghost Pokemon and makes them vulnerable to Normal-type attacks—a clever workaround to Morty's usual strategy. After losing, Morty admits he believes Ash might actually have seen Ho-Oh after all, impressed by his determination.
When Ash passes through town again later, it becomes clear that Morty and Eusine are close friends, bonded over their shared obsession with studying rare legendary Pokemon. He also makes a brief appearance with Whitney in a later episode when it turns out they're both potential Gym leaders for another trainer.
In the Pokemon Adventures manga, Morty's character takes on a different dimension entirely—he's essentially a human Itemfinder with psychic clairvoyant abilities that let him locate lost objects and Pokemon from a distance. His dream is to see Ho-Oh someday, though Ho-Oh's power is so immense it actually blocks his psychic senses. Suicune is another Pokemon he's struggled to pin down. He wasn't in Ecruteak when Team Rocket caused an earthquake to destroy parts of the city, but he helped rebuild afterward.
His manga storyline includes him finding a Girafarig for a woman before hearing on the radio that Suicune has woken up. He tracks it down through a mist filled with Gastly and Misdreavus, but the legendary Pokemon outsmarts him—when he throws a Great Ball, Suicune uses Mirror Coat to bounce the attack back and paralyze his Misdreavus instead. He alerts Eusine about the encounter and joins the chase.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
