Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles

## The Collectiveof the Retconning Crocodiles

A sketch of one of the Collective's members by Aristide Twain.

**The Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles** is a secret organization made up of genetically-altered crocodiles.

## Description

One of the many knockoffs of the Horde of the Violet Hare created by Professor Scarper's experiments, the Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles are an organization capable of altering history so as to suit their own purpose (they also, like all other Hare knockoffs, presumably want to search for Atlantean treasure). They have access to all manners of advance time- and universe-traveling technology which they use for purposes which it is hard to describe as anything but "shadowy", and worship Lord Thymon in a cultlike fashion — or at least, they did until they learned that Thymon had turned into a relatively meek character working in the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids' Department of Postal Services. Though liable to pop up, and acquire hideouts, in almost any universe, they primarily dwell in their ever-shifting Time Sewers.

### History

#### Activities in Duckburg

At some point between 1955 and 1975, they erased from history a taxi driver who had once driven Scrooge McDuck to Donald Duck's house, but could not remember why they had done so later on, as they had also erased from history the secret which they had obliviated the taxi driver in order to protect.

Prior to 2019, a member of the Collective had once been captured by the Drove of the Database-Compiling Dromedaries, who imprisoned the Crocodile in Research Laboratory 6 with other mutant specimens and attempted to study it. However, it swiftly escaped by changing history so that it had never been captured at all. As the only record of its presence in the Drove's facilities, it left a taunting note to tell the Dromedaries what had happened.

#### Meddling with comics

In 2019, the Collective revealed themselves to Joe Torcivia in the comments section of his blog, where they explained that they were likely responsible for any otherwise inexplicable inconsistencies in comic books, having caused these inconsistencies through their changing of the timeline.

Upon hearing this, Torcivia asked them to remove IDW's 2019 run of Disney comics from existence. The reptiles attempted this, but instead supposedly succeeded only at causing both a 2007 hardcover miniseries, *The Wedding of Goldie O'Gilt* (apparently written by Don Rosa in the original timeline) and a story known as *Super Goof Finds Pirate Gold* to be erased from the continuum.

The Horde of the Violet Hare later speculated that the Collective were behind a strange case in which a comic was printed twice, but redrawn completely upon its second printing.  Joe Torcivia tentatively agreed with this explanation.  A Crocodile was later present at Joe's house when the Phantom Blot attempted to steal comics from his collection, among other members of the Strangely-Coloured Secret Societies.**[U****NOFF****]**

#### Dealings with the Cupids

In 2019, the Crocodiles sent envoys to the Cupid Homeworld, trying to convince the Crew to swear allegiance to them. They showed the Cupids some of their time technology and were (at first) awed to come across Lord Thymon in the flesh, but their attempts to force a deal on the Cupid using an engineered time loop were foiled by Pythagoras-858, they stopped showing up in the Homeworld, with a different member of the Crew later declaring them to be presumably evil.

Torcivia later defended the Crocodiles from the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids' accusations of their being evil, noting that among other good causes, they had “erased 50 additional needless *Star Wars* sequels (they tried for everything that followed *The Empire Strikes Back*, but even they have their limitations), the cancellation of *The Simpsons* after Season One, Carl Barks never going into comics and starting that 'chicken ranch' he was considering, David Gerstein becoming a college history professor, and Esther Torcivia and [him] never meeting”. He added that they were even now working to undo the Trump presidency.

In the spring of 2020, a splinter group of Crocodiles returned to the Cupid Homeworld to steal a Reality Bomb from Cupid Storage, hoping to manufacture duplicates of it and use them to cow the Council of Frogs into giving its power up to them. However, they were soundly defeated by a Cupid dispatched on a special mission to track them down. Soon after, agents of the main Collective infiltrated the 10,000 Dawns, taking advantage of a time disturbance. However, they ran into the Tourist, who came up with a scheme to force them back where they came from.

## Behind the scenes

The Collective started out as yet another parody of the Horde of the Violet Hare created by an anonymous reader in the comments section of a post of *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand*, in continuation of the running gag existing on that blog in which various knockoffs of the Horde comment on Torcivia's posts. They later became major antagonists in the ongoing of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, while always maintaining a presence on *The Issue At Hand*.

### Notes & references

1. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (December 2019).
2. ↑ *Pessimist and the Dromedaries* (2019).
3. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (June 2019).
4. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue at Hand* (June 2019)
5. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (June 2019).
6. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (June 2019).
7. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (June 2019).
8. ↑ *The Phantom Blot Visits Joe!* (2020).
9. ↑ *Crocodile Time*(2019).
10. ↑ *Time-Out* (2019).
11. ↑ *Time Loops & Treachery* (2019).
12. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (May 2020).
13. ↑ *Joe Torcivia's The Issue At Hand* (May 2020).
14. ↑ *Multiverse Mayhem: A Multiple-Choice Cupid Caper* (2020).
15. ↑ *Remembrance of the Judicator* (2020).