A new article in the Miami Herald raises a terrifying prospect for nanotech warfare:

Jane's, the London-based research group that publishes the industry standard Jane's All the World's Aircraft, warns that nanotechnology can be used to create entirely new hazards such as miniaturized nuclear weapons that are smaller, lighter, easier to transport and hide and smuggle into unsuspecting countries. It says nano techniques designed to deliver medicines in a more-targeted way also can deliver toxic substances in a form of bioterrorism.

Nanotechnology, in which materials are machined on a molecule-by-molecule, or atom-by-atom basis, could produce super-nukes that are so tiny, they don't technically qualify as weapons of mass destruction, Jane's has warned in past articles.

In one 2003 article, Jane's warns that "some advanced technology, such as superlaser" could trigger a relatively small thermonuclear explosion involving a deuterium-tritium mixture, in a device weighing no more than a few kilograms. The device could go from a fraction of a ton to "many tens of tons" of high-explosive equivalent yield, and because they use little to no fissionable materials, they would have "virtually no radioactive fallout." Self-replicating nanotech could also produce conventional weapons in such quantities that they would become WMDs.

Are you scared yet?

Famous names: Writer Grant Morrison, artists Frank Quietly and Phil Jiminez. And Magneto who was, apparently, right.

Crunchy goodness: 4

Design breakthrough: Morrison's first issue of the series was spent partially taking the characters out of their superhero outfits, with the characters talking about the change: "Suddenly I don't have to look like an idiot in broad daylight."

Most painfully dated moment: Nano-robots threatening to eradicate an entire species? How turn of the century can you get?

Deadliest spoiler: Men with iron masks should never be trusted. What is this world of liars, Xorn?

Review of New X-Men Omnibus at Pop Matters