Fictional characters with AS

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In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Today, based on a suggestion from somebody, I look into who was the first autistic superhero

For the sake of the banner, I used the cover to Fantastic Four Season One (by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and David Marquez), where Aguirre-Sacasa revealed, in this version of the Fantastic Four's origins, that Reed Richards is autistic..

That, though, was decades after the ACTUAL first superhero with autism.

Psi-Force was a New Universe title about a group of teams with paranormal abilities that had to go on the run because they were in demand from various governments due to their powerful abilities. They were able to combine their minds to form a being known as Psi-Hawk. In Psi-Force #24, they formed Psi-Hawk for the last time. When it was broken up, their minds couldn't take it and they all went into comas.

In Psi-Force #21 (by Fabian Nicieza, Graham Nolan and Mike Witherby), we learn that the Russians have a facility for paranormal people, too, and one of them is an autistic kid with pyrokinetic powers

After the gang end up in comas in #25, they begin to wake up in #27 (story by Nicieza, art by Alan Kupperberg and Chris Ivy), and one of the team members, Matthew Boyd (who was an energy vampire, of sorts) woke up in the Russian facility. He began to train himself under their care. Well, one day, he discovers the autistic child and he is irate over how they're treating the kid...

The heads of the facility decide to just lobotomize the kid...

Boyd steps in and makes a deal where he will take the kid (who he dubs Johnny Do) under his wing and train him if they will let him live...

They make the deal.

A few issues later, in Psi-Force #30 (pencils by Rodney Ramos, Nicieza and Ivy still on board as writer and inker, respectively), we see that Boyd has been training Johnny Do well...

Anyhow, Psi-Force teams up with the Russians to defeat a wildly powerful Russian villain. Boyd is seriously injured in the fight, and the others actually use Johnny's affection for Boyd by putting the wounded Boyd into danger so that Johnny will attack the villain, allowing the combined might of everyone to kill the bad guy...

The title was canceled with #32, but not before we see Johnny fully a part of the team...