Here we go again...
COMICVINE'S TOP 100 SUPERMAN STORIES #22
Really, how many times do we need Superman's origin retold? Superman: Secret Origin gives it to us once again with few improvements and and many 'dis-improvements'. To begin with, I'm a fan of the idea that Superman's powers manifested themselves in late-teens / young adulthood as we've seen in stories like George Francis Lowther's original Adventures of Superman novel from 1942, the original Adventures of Superman radio show, or the 1980s Man of Steel miniseries by John Byrne. But if you're going to have Superman start as a Superboy, there's still better versions of his origin than this one, such as issue #53 of Superman.
There are a couple things I like about this comic. For one, Gary Frank chose to depict young Clark Kent like a young looking Christopher Reeve. And Geoff Johns introduces the idea that Clark's glasses are designed to hold in his heat vision (an idea probably taken from Cyclops' visor). But then, the way he gets the glasses is ridiculous. Not only does Martha Kent make the Superboy costume for him - I've always been good with that part of the story - but now she notices his heat vision doesn't damage crystals attached to his spaceship which happened to break off for her conveinence, and she grinds them, polishes them makes custom frames and manufactures these glasses one night and gives them to him to wear to school the next day. I mean, why doesn't she just invent some web-shooters while she's at it?
If all of that isn't enough for one issue, in addition to all the normal stuff like discovering he's from Krypton, always having been super strong, discovering x-ray vision, discovering heat vision, saving Lana from dying twice, discovering he can fly, etc.; we also get him meeting Lex Luthor for the first time, and Lex discovering some kryptonite just lying on the ground for him to trip over (literally).
It looks modern, but it actually takes us back to those bad-ol-days of pre-Crisis silliness.
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