Part of me wants to think "Ah c'mon guys, bringing in Crocodine into this situation is a classic case of prequels recklessly bringing in characters from the original work and shrinking the scale of the world!"
The other 99% of me went "WOO! HELL YEAH! IT'S MY MAIN MAN CROCODINE! LOVE TO SEE HIM!"
Plus, in a lot ways it just makes sense. He's basically the only Legion Commander who we didn't know what they were up to during this timeframe. So showing us how he either became Beast King, or caught Vearn's attention isn't an unreasonable choice.
But let's be real. The main reason he's here is because everybody loves Crocodine. And we're objectively correct for that.