morph was in like 2 x-men stories ever, he wasn't even an original character
they made him for the pilot to die. who cares about him?
Morph was made for the cartoon as someone to sacrifice off the jump, but later in the series Mr. Sinister brought him back from the dead.
Later in the comics, they retconned that Morph in the cartoon was essentially the same character as silver age character The Changeling who was fake Prof X for a minute while Chuck hid in a bunker to power up to repel an alien attack against Earth. Being Chuck, he didn't tell anyone this so when Changeling/Charles died, the OG X-Men got their first of many times dealing with their teacher dying but not dying.
All later versions of Morph were alternate reality versions of the Changeling beginning with his redesign in Age of Apocalypse.
I'm glad they went with the blank face Joe Mad inspired design b/c OG cartoon Morph was just a dude in the X-Men rookie outfit. Plus they probably didn't want to keep drawing the bags under his eyes like they did all time after his undeadening.
The Wolvy buddy thing goes back to the pilot as he was the only person that could make Logan laugh and, when he got killed right away, it allowed Logan to be extra angry, surly and miserable from the jump which made instantly great moments like the Cyclops gut punch or "giving" Cyke a convertable. If he wasn't a mutant red shirt, I'd imagine they'd have Morph/Logan have some of that classic Kurt/Logan dynamic as the series went on.
And I don't get the hang-up when "non-binary" is just a term for not having a specific gender, which shapeshifters are by definition. If they didn't use the term, the same shyt would be true regardless as Morph can be anyone, especially now with the Joe Mad blank slate face.