Sommerfeld integration is introduced to calculate the spatial-domain Green's functions (GF) for the method of moments in multilayered media. To avoid time-consuming numerical integration, the discrete complex image method (DCIM) was introduced by approximating the spectral-domain GF by a sum of exponentials. However, traditional DCIM is not accurate in the far- and/or near-field region. Quasi-static and surface-wave terms need to be extracted before the approximation and it is complicated to extract the surface-wave terms. In this paper, some features of the matrix pencil method (MPM) are clarified. A new direct DCIM without any quasi-static and surface-wave extraction is introduced. Instead of avoiding large variations of the spectral kernel, we introduce a novel path. to include more variation before we apply the MPM. The spatial-domain GF obtained by the new DCIM is accurate both in the near- and far-field regions. The CPU time used to perform the new DCIM is less than I s for computing the fields with a horizontal source-field separation from 1.6 x 10(-4) lambda to 16 lambda. The new DCIM can be even accurate up to 160 lambda provided the variation of the spectral kernel is large enough and we have accounted for a sufficient number of complex images.