Captain Supermarket is actually a real person. Sort of. The real Captain Supermarket is Justin Robinson, Editor-in-Chief of Th3rd World Studios. “The Rant Aisle” is his sometimes blog on pop culture that can be found on the Th3rd World site.
I liked the idea of a person thinking themselves a superhero simply for trolling message boards. I think there’s a certain faction of hardcore geeks that kind of see themselves that way–that they’re the only thing standing between the pop culture icons they love and the crass market manipulation that can sometimes defeat even the best creative ideas. No idea if Justin is like that. Never even met the guy.
In fact, it wasn’t until after this was posted that I found out Justin doesn’t even like Firefly.
was this character ever intended to have a larger role?
Not really. It was a cameo as a favor to a friend. I think I might have had it in mind to do something with him at one point, but it never really became a priority.