Ash became the owner after the events that developed with the abandonment of Charmender by its original owner in the first episodes. He evolved into Charmeleon in later episodes as he tried to prevent an army of Exeggutor from razing a town.
Charmeleon stopped obeying Ash after evolving as Ash thought everything would be perfect. In later episodes, Ash is kidnapped by an Aerodactyl. Charmeleon gets angry with Aerodactyl for injuring him and evolves into Charizard. Although Ash thinks that Charmeleon evolved to save him, things didn’t actually turn out that way.
Charizard takes off and chases Aerodactyl. In the meantime, ignoring the flames he started and shooting Ash allows Ash to perceive what is actually happening. Charizard does not obey Ash for a long time. Only when Ash is up against Blain does he fight him because he sees his Magmar as a suitable opponent.
He then begins to disobey again, even costing Ash a tournament. Some time later, while Ash was in the Orange Isles, Charizard suffered his first defeat heavily. So much so that the fire in its tail almost extinguishes. Ash spends the night trying to heal Charizard.
After seeing this, Charizard begins to obey Ash. For quite some time after that, Ash and Charizard put on very good matches. However, the Charizards in Johto in what is known as the Charizard Valley are much stronger than Ash’s and each inflict heavy defeats on him one by one.
Ash, for Charizard’s sake, tells him that he is too weak, that he does not want to move on with a Pokemon like him, and leaves it there to be trained. Charizard, who started training there, later became so strong that he even managed to defeat the legendary pokemon Articuno in later chapters.
