We present a multiwavelength study of the poor cluster RX J1117.4+0743 ([VMF98] 097) at z=0.485, based on GMOS/Gemini South g' and r' photometry and spectroscopy, and XMM-Newton observations. We examine its nature and surroundings by analyzing the projected galaxy distribution, the galaxy velocity distribution, the weak-lensing mass reconstruction, and the X-ray spectroscopy and imaging.