Mister Jeffries in Uncanny X-Men #507

Uncanny X-Men #507
May 2009

The Manifest Destiny story line concludes for the Uncanny X-Men title in this issue as the Science Team continues its 2009 recruitment drive. Left in a cliffhanger from last issue, the team encounters a giant godzilla-type monster while recruiting the Japanese scientist Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi. Mister Jeffries appears as a regular member of the X-Men Science Team, having joined up in issue #505.

The Beast takes the opportunity right before their expected demise to rename the group “X-Club” after a group of 19th Century scientists who included Charles Darwin in their ranks. There’s actually an entire page where they just stare up at the monster in shock and wonder as the team is shown in ever-shrinking perspective. At the final panel, Jeffries is just a tiny blob of orange paint. Then the monster says, “BWWWWOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR”

Mister Jeffries asks Dr. Takiguchi if he has any machinery for him to transmute into weapons. Despite the fatalistic answer he receives, he is able to find enough junk lying around to build an awesome-looking gun. A big awesome-looking gun, so big you’d think it was mocking Rob Liefeld and the oversized guns he’d typically draw on a Cable cover.

As he’s assembling the gun, Dr. Nemesis calls him a “Redneck”, to which he counters “Snob”, not the worst insult exchange you’ll ever read in a comic book. The panel where he’s assembling the gun is 100% Classic Jeffries: his hands are held out, the metal bits are flying around and floating in front of him to form the big awesome-looking gun. This is similar to the previous two issues where similar panels showed Jeffries doing the same thing, and it’s nice to see him in such a canonical way. From the way the panel is arranged, you can’t tell how large the gun really is, but in a subsequent panel, Jeffries can be seen very tiny holding it.

Big awesome-looking gun

Unfortunately, he never gets the chance to fire the big awesome-looking gun because Archangel takes down the Godzilla monster singlehandedly. One odd thing done by Matt Fraction in this issue is a juxtaposition of the Colossus/Emma Frost story right over the Science Team story. It’s sort of clever, and sort of a fun moment when you realize how the panels are laid out, but it’s also sort of pointless because the stories are independent of each other and unrelated in theme, character and plot. It doesn’t take away from Jeffries little appearance in this issue, and the big awesome-looking gun he made is still just as big and awesome-looking with or without it.

Note: there are two variant covers for this issue:

	Uncanny X-Men #507 – Michael Golden variant
	Uncanny X-Men #507 – Planet Comicon variant, a convention exclusive available at the 2009 Planet Comicon in Overland Park, Kansas, where Matt Fraction and Michael Golden were on hand for signings and re-marking

Tags: Madison Jeffries