Marvel has officially introduced a Singaporean teenage mutant in a new version of The Uncanny X-Men Series that first debuted in 1981.
Jitter, whose real name is Sofia Yong, was announced on August 9, Singapore’s National Day. She was revealed along with three other new characters, collectively known as “the Outliers.”
The second issue of this latest series, written by Gail Simone and illustrated by David Marquez, will feature the Outliers alongside other X-Men and will be available September 11. The characters were first revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in July.
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According to author Simone, Jitter has trouble concentrating and prioritizing, but her ability to hyperfocus allows her to acquire certain skills, though not powers, for up to a minute before she “crashes.”
“She can perform a certain skill for a minute, like being the best martial artist in the world or the best lock picker of all time. And she has a timer that she sets and she can do that for a minute and then it’s over,” Simone told pop culture website Popverse, adding that the young girl stutters and is “very cool.”
“We designed these new outliers to represent invisible disabilities, so that when you look at them you can’t tell that they are mutants.”
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On social media, Jitter’s traits have been compared to those of a typical Singaporean student exhausted from exam preparation. One Reddit user joked that Jitter’s ability might be “the result of years of training by her Kiasu Tiger mother in Singapore’s academic system” rather than an actual superpower. “Kiasu” is a Hokkien term meaning competitiveness or fear of losing.
Others echoed this sentiment, noting that Singapore’s competitive culture seems to extend even to mutants. Some joked that her power could help her tackle the “10-year series,” a collection of past national exam papers. One Redditor quipped, “They call her Jitter because she gets nervous when she’s not doing something productive, like taking a break.”
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Some Reddit users speculated that her ability could be interpreted as a reference to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), warning that this could be a “simplification” and possibly a trivialization of the condition. One joking comment referred to Jitter as “Adderall ah lian,” which is a connection between Adderall, a common ADHD medication, and “ah lian,” a slang term for a young Chinese woman.
This is not Singapore’s first appearance in Marvel’s world. The fictional Southeast Asian nation of Madripoor, which X-Men The series is loosely based on Singapore. Madripoor’s underworld is led by Tyger Tiger, a Singaporean banking heiress and Harvard graduate.
