Marvel Just Released a New Character on 9 Aug & She’s a S’porean

While most of us were busy watching the National Day Parade’s fireworks in awe, some Singaporean Marvel fans were in awe at something else instead — a new Singaporean character in the X-Men series.

Yes, you read that right. Marvel unveiled a Singaporean character to be introduced to the X-Men series, on Singapore’s National Day.

Happy National Day, indeed.

Marvel Unveils New Singaporean Character on Singapore’s National Day

On Friday (9 Aug), Marvel officially introduced the newest character to the new iteration of The Uncanny X-Men comics. Here’s the catch — the character, known as Jitter, is a Singaporean.

The character’s real name, however, is not something you would expect. It’s not the stereotypical “Tan Jia Xuan” or “Lee Wei Jie”. The character’s real name is Sofia Yong.

Okay lah. Singaporean enough, I suppose.

Jitter was unveiled by Marvel as a character alongside three other new characters, collectively known as “the Outliers”. The Outliers will be featured alongside other X-Men in the series, with the second issue of the latest series going on sale from 11 September onwards.

Jitter: A True Blue Singaporean? 

At this point, you might be thinking: “What exactly makes Jitter Singaporean?”

Well, for one, she will be speaking some Singlish in the comics, according to Gail Simone, the writer for the comics.

We wonder if Jitter will be quoting some of our favourite Singaporean lines — perhaps the classic “If you really want me right, you should chase after me”.

But Singlish is not all that makes Jitter Singaporean. Jitter’s mutant power in the comics might be something that many Singaporeans can relate to.

According to Ms Simone, Jitter has difficulty concentrating or prioritising things. As a result, Jitter uses her mutant power of hyper-focus which allows her to attain a skillset for up to a minute.

Har… One minute only ah? I think even a Singaporean student can hyper-focus for a longer time to complete an assignment the night before it’s due.

After the one-minute timer is up, Sofia “crashes” and is unable to continue in her hyper-focus.

In other words, the character’s mutant power is a little like that one minute before we Singaporeans pang gang lah — zuo bo for the whole day and hyper-focus on editing one spreadsheet one minute before work ends.

At least now we have an excuse for why we’re unable to focus on work lah. It’s not a weakness, but rather, a mutant power.

Jitter doesn’t slow down to sleep either — something that many Singaporeans probably relate to as well. The energy drink-powered nights doing work are a classic Singaporean experience.

While a handful of netizens have marvelled (pun not intended) at the introduction of the new Singaporean character, others remarked that Jitter’s mutant power of hyper-focusing appears to be inspired by a symptom of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Bingo. https://t.co/G57AqQ7pui

— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) August 8, 2024

So, what’s your take on the new Singaporean character?