#trending: New S’pore teen character in Marvel comic book sounds like burnt-out student, say netizens

SINGAPORE — Online users have reacted with amusement to comic book publisher Marvel’s announcement that one of its newest characters is a Singaporean teenager, with some saying that she sounds like a stereotypical burnt-out student or workaholic intern here.
The character Jitter, whose name is Sofia Yong, was introduced alongside three other characters collectively known as “the Outliers”.
She will appear in the second issue of The Uncanny X-Men, a relaunch of the comic book series by writer Gail Simone, due out on Sept 11.
The teenager possesses an ability to “hyper-focus”, which means that she “can do anything she sets her mind to — accessing talents and skills most people train their lives to develop,” Marvel said in announcing the move last Friday (Aug 9).
This means that she could be the world’s top martial artist or expert lockpicker in that short time, for example.
However, using her power would cause an “immediate crash if she exerts her ability for too long”.
Sofia/Jitter also has a “stopwatch on her at all times” since she can use her skills for just one minute, Ms Simone said in an interview with pop culture site Popverse. 
Some social media users said that Jitter’s traits resemble stereotypical Singaporean students who are burnt out from studying for their examinations. 
A user of online forum Reddit teased that Jitter’s ability could be “the result of years of training by her kiasu Tiger mum under the Singapore academic system” rather than an actual superpower. 
“Kiasu” is a Hokkien term that refers to being competitive or the fear of losing out. 
Others echoed the sentiment, referencing Singapore’s competitive landscape and commenting on how even mutants are not exempt from “the rat race”. 
They jokingly wrote about how her power could pull her through completing the “10-year series”, which is a collection of national examination papers from the last decade that is a rite of passage for any student here. 
One Redditor wrote: “They call her Jitter because she gets the jitters not doing anything productive like taking a break.”
Others on Reddit brought up how her ability could be inspired by a regular symptom of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and doing so might be “oversimplifying” and potentially trivialising the condition of ADHD. 
There was one comment written in jest that Jitter was an “Adderall ah lian”, with Adderall being a combination medication for ADHD and “ah lian” a colloquial Hokkien term for a young Chinese woman. 
This is not the first time that Singapore has appeared in the Marvel canon. Madripoor, a fictional Southeast Asian nation that appears mainly in the X-Men series, is said to be loosely based on Singapore. 
The underworld of Madripoor is also ruled by a character called Tyger Tiger — a Singaporean banking heiress who is a graduate of Harvard University.  
A few fans have asked Ms Simone on social media platform X about how much Singlish that Jitter will speak in the comics. In response, the writer said that Jitter’s use of it will be “fairly minimal”, but added that she personally loves “the sound and cadence of Singlish”.
“That doesn’t mean (Jitter) is the only one using it, lah,” Simone wrote. 
TODAY has reached out to The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of Marvel Entertainment, for comment.