Marvel has officially introduced a Singaporean teenage mutant in a new iteration of The Uncanny X-Men series, which first debuted in 1981.
Jitter, whose real name is Sofia Yong, was announced on August 9, Singapore’s National Day. She was unveiled alongside three other new characters known collectively 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 from September 11. The characters were first revealed at July’s San Diego Comic-Con.
Jitter struggles with concentration and prioritization, according to writer Simone, but her hyper-focus ability allows her to acquire a skillset, though not powers, for up to a minute before she “crashes.”
“She can take one set of skills, like being the top martial artist in the world, or the best lockpicker that there ever was, for one minute. And she has a timer that she sets, and she can do that thing for one minute and then it’s gone,” Simone told pop culture site Popverse, adding that the teenage girl has a stutter and is “very cool.”
“These new Outliers, we’ve designed them to represent invisible disabilities in that when you look at them, you cannot tell that they’re mutants.”
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Social media reactions compared Jitter’s traits to the typical Singaporean student, exhausted from exam preparation. A Reddit user joked that Jitter’s ability might be “the result of years of training by her kiasu Tiger mum under the Singapore academic system” rather than a true superpower. “Kiasu” is a Hokkien term meaning competitive or fear of losing out.
Others echoed these sentiments, noting how Singapore’s competitive culture seemingly extends even to mutants, with some joking 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 the jitters not doing anything productive like taking a break.”
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Some Reddit users speculated that her ability could be seen as a reference to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), warning that it might be “oversimplifying” and potentially trivializing the condition. A comment in jest referred to Jitter as an “Adderall ah lian,” linking Adderall, a common ADHD medication, to “ah lian,” a colloquial term for a young Chinese woman.
This isn’t Singapore’s first appearance in Marvel’s world. The fictional Southeast Asian nation of Madripoor, featured in the X-Men series, is loosely based on Singapore. Madripoor’s underworld is led by Tyger Tiger, a Singaporean banking heiress and Harvard graduate.
