Boating in the Chesapeake Bay offshore the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant changed Clark Rogers’ life forever. His boat’s propeller snagged a crab pot and while he was unfouling it he bought up a pot full of enormous, glowing blue crabs. Naturally, he cooked them up for a meal.After eating the radioactive crabs spiced with Old Bay, Rogers suddenly could run sideways at tremendous speed. Swim faster than Michael Phelps. 360-degree vision. His hands grew so strong he now had a “super pinch grip.” He did not become the hero Maryland needed, but the hero Maryland deserved: 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 bit Clark Kent, a little bit Steve Rogers” — there was just the man behind the costume: Clark Rogers Oliver, a Star Trek-obsessed Maryland native, retired Montgomery County firefighter, and cosplaying community fixture. “I had all the action figures,” Oliver said. “But what I really wanted to do was be the action figure.” From a young age he attended sci-fi conventions dressed as his favorite characters. The regional hero appears to be this costume-loving Marylander’s final form. Oliver’s creation has taken on a life of its own, giving him, and the state, a cause to rally behind — Maryland itself.

Born in Bethesda and raised in Chevy Chase, Oliver spent his latchkey-70’s-kid days after school split between the local firehouse and the library, both a few hundred yards away from his house where he built ray-gun props from paper towel and toilet-paper tubes and yards of masking tape. Those props enabled him and his pals to escape to strange new worlds where Oliver could be Captain Kirk or Luke Skywalker instead of the skinny kid who was bullied for liking those things. “Growing up I wanted to be either Captain Kirk or Johnny Gage (a character from the TV show “Emergency!”). It was a lot easier to be Johnny Gage. The firehouse was so close to my home that I could hear the bells ring inside my home. I’d leap onto my bike and follow them if I could.” After graduating high school, Oliver joined the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad for a quasi-college education in rescue work before being hired by Montgomery County Fire & Rescue in 1989. He retired in 2020.

Captain Maryland started as a random thought- what if Captain America was… regional? The joke wrote itself in seconds. His cosplay friends (the Nerd Herd) helped him flesh out the character at a party one night and the character debuted at Awesome Con in 2022. “It was just intended to be a one-time thing, to make my friends laugh.” At the urging of his wife, he wore the costume again to Baltimore Comic Con later that year and a Tik Tok interview with content creator Shimmerwali went viral. This attracted the attention of country singer Jimmy Charles, who asked Oliver to be a part of the music video for his hit song, “It’s A Maryland Thing.” Oliver now regularly joins Charles at concert events to sing the song. The legend was born. “I’m always surprised and humbled at how well the character was received and how people love him. It’s a wonderful thing, to bring people joy and a good laugh. It’s good for the soul. Now that I have this platform, I intend to use it for good.”.