Legend Of Captain Maryland Grows As Homegrown Superhero Travels The State

KENSINGTON, MD — A superhero who can run sideways and has a super-pinch grip is fast becoming a celebrity across Maryland.

Captain Maryland, with Old Bay seafood seasoning containers fastened to his utility belt and a large crab mallet in his hand, gets stopped everywhere he goes by fans who want to snap a photo of him.

The rise of Captain Maryland didn’t happen because he was cast in superhero movies — although he was invited recently to appear in a music video. Captain Maryland’s arrival on the superhero scene has been a grassroots effort, with social media playing a big role.

As the legend of Captain Maryland grows, his calendar keeps filling up. He’s scheduled to march in the Kensington Labor Day Parade and the Mayor’s Christmas Parade in Baltimore in early December.

Who is the man behind the mask and leggings designed with the Maryland state flag? He’s Clark Rogers, a retired firefighter who spent 35 years with Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services.

Born in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Rogers grew up in Chevy Chase and graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. He’s lived in Kensington for the past 15 years.

Every superhero needs an origin story, and Rogers explains that Captain Maryland gained his superhero powers after eating radioactive crabs from the Chesapeake Bay near the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant. The seafood gave him the powerful pinch of a crab, the ability to run sideways like a crab, and his bullet-proof crab-shaped shield.

In reality, Rogers, 55, came up with the idea of Captain Maryland to make his friends laugh. Growing up, he was a big fan of Star Trek and started attending Star Trek conventions in the 1970s. But Rogers didn’t catch the superhero bug until just a few years ago, when he saw “Avengers: Infinity War.”

With a new appreciation of superheroes, Rogers came up with the idea of Captain Maryland about a year ago and wore the Maryland-themed costume to the 2021 Awesome Con at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C.

A couple of months later, Rogers was thinking of costume ideas to wear to Comic Con in Baltimore. Rogers said his wife convinced him he should dress up as Captain Maryland again. The legend of Captain Maryland skyrocketed when another Comic Con attendee made a TikTok of Captain Maryland — in which he hailed the greatness of the Maryland flag and jokingly dismissed the Virginia flag as the worst — that has received nearly 800,000 views since last fall.

WUSA9 then ran a segment about Captain Maryland and the TikTok.

“Since then, it’s been nuts,” Rogers said about the rise of Captain Maryland.

Earlier this year, country music singer Jimmy Charles contacted Roger and asked him to appear in the music video for his new song “It’s a Maryland Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand.” The video, which premiered on Wednesday, shows several shots of Captain Maryland, including Charles and Captain Maryland walking together in Baltimore's Inner Harbor with someone dressed as Francis Scott Key.

Rogers said the music video was almost finished when he was contacted about joining Charles in the video. Charles, who is from Ocean City and lives in Nashville, really wanted to get Captain Maryland in the video, he said. Since making the video, Rogers said he and Charles have become friends.

Captain Maryland also is making a name for himself on the Eastern Shore. Last week, The Salisbury Times published an article about him, with a large photo, on its front page.

Rogers said he'll keep putting on the Captain Maryland costume for as long as it continues to make people happy and feeling good about their home state.

In 10 days, instead of driving a Montgomery County fire truck in the Kensington Labor Day Parade like he did several times in the past when he was a firefighter, Rogers will be marching as Captain Maryland. Rogers said he's looking forward to seeing the response from the hometown crowd to his Captain Maryland alter ego.