The size of the ship is frankly "because." Even if Krypton was in our solar system, the ship would have to be terrifically made to accomplish its goal. Yet making the cabin about six feet longer was somehow too much. You just have to accept things like that to go on with the story.
Exactly part of the same point, and you can't quite blame Byrne for that. Jor-L, in the 1939 origin, had surveyed Earth by telescope. Like most others, Byrne was faithful to Siegel and Shuster. Yeah, he added Kansas, but if they could somehow find a way to survey Earth (50 light years away) to begin with, it's not much of a stretch that the last few miles are also within view, is it?
I know little about Icon, but I did already know that. And I don't find it much of a surprise that the writer defaulted him to look just like a human. It's also no surprise to me when someone dusts off the Martian Manhunter and gives him a human identity. Whether or not some writer flings a quick explanation out of their pocket, I think my point stands.Didn't have to look very far to find the fiction: Milestone Media's Superman pastiche ICON.
But when his alien craft crashed in pre-Civil War America, his craft automatically scanned for the nearest sapient life form (a black field worker) and genetically altered his alien phenotypes to match that of a black infant, who would be much more likely to be not be feared by the populace.
The beauty of Post Crisis Superman was the he wasn't trying to be anything. He grew up as Clark, identified as Clark, and behaved like Clark in and out of costume.I grew up with the Post-COIE version of Superman. That was my favorite hero ... until I realized just how much was cut away from him by Byrne and never restored. And how in hindsight, it seems like Post-COIE Superman was too often Clark trying to be a Kryptonian version of Spider-Man (a super-hero with Human problems). Give me the classic "OverPowered" Superman over the "Dumbed Down and De-powered so other heroes can shine" version any day.
Incidentally, and this isn't knocking the character, but going over the older origins I think you could say Pre-crisis Superman wasn't too bright as he couldn't even read by a "normal" age.