Back in the Silver Age (when, in all honesty, most DC comic book characters' feats were vastly above what they're capable of now - even when it came to feats of intelligence), Lex Luthor created a temporal coil out of nothing more than scrap while he was incarcerated in a Metropolis jail cell. Using tungsten from a light bulb, a coil spring, a flashlight, some citric acid and a cardboard tube, he was able to make the device in order to use it to trap Superman. On another occasion, using a clock, some paper clips, some copper wire and two aspirin, he built a solar-powered time ray. He then used it to pull the demigod Hercules out of time to help him bust out of jail - although Hercules soon realised that Luthor was a villain and stopped helping him.
