A Superhero I Can Get Behind

I am referring, of course to Captain Maryland, defender of ……… Hell, I don't know.

He's a cosplayer, and it's schtick, he does not take himself seriously at all.

Fishing offshore the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant changed Clark Rogers’ life forever.

After eating radioactive crabs spiced with Old Bay, Rogers suddenly could run sideways at supersonic speeds. Swim faster than Michael Phelps. His hands grew so strong he now had a “super pinch grip.”

He became a hero that, of course, Maryland would have: Captain Maryland — Champion of the Chesapeake, Protector of the Potomac, Defender of Deep Creek.

But before there was Captain Maryland, or even Clark Rogers — a nom de guerre that’s “a little Clark Kent, a little Steve Rogers” — there was just the man behind the costume: Clark Oliver, a Star Wars-obsessed Maryland native and cosplaying community fixture.

………

Oliver says he can’t take too much credit for the costume design. He just did what any other Marylander would do “instinctively.”

“Marylanders will slap that flag on anything,” Oliver said. “We love our flag, but we have no reverence for it at all.”

………

The costume was supposed to be a one-time gag, but it was such a hit in D.C., he couldn’t resist wearing it to Baltimore Comic-Con.

A TikToker called ShimmerWali posted a video interviewing Oliver at the event. It received hundreds of thousands of views.

”Best superhero,” ShimmerWali said in the video. “That’s my state right there.”

Then country singer and Maryland native Jimmy Charles reached out, asking him to make an appearance in his music video “It’s a Maryland Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand.” Before he knew it, Oliver found himself singing alongside Natty Boh and Francis Scott Key in a Maryland flag-covered Jeep.

This is all kind of awesome.

Maybe it's a Maryland thing, though.