Townsend was killed in a car accident, then stitched back together and brought to life by two scientists, Dr. Egon Boiffard and Dr. Gillespie Flem.

The procedure left Frank with amplified physical capabilities with superhuman agility and reflexes and a slight degree of precognitive and empathic power; however, he remembers nothing about his former life, but faint, troubling memories relating to his death.

Dr. Boiffard, in an attempt to boost his brain power, transmuted his entire head into neural tissue, leaving him an invalid in a hospital.

Despite the fact Frank has blue skin, a metal scalp plate, and criss-crossed scars similar to Frankenstein's monster, he has a steady girlfriend, a secretary by the name of Josephine "Joe" Lombard.

Madman's other allies include Mott, an alien from the planet Hoople, who was saved by Frank when another alien, Zenelle, wanted to marry and eat Mott; Gale, an invisible female scientist who was tattooed by Dr. Flem's mutant clones and further rendered invisible by her attempts to eliminate the tattoos; and Astroman and Machina, a pair of robotic humanoids.

When Mott first arrived he was being chased by Zenelle, a female alien from a species infamous throughout the galaxy for devouring their mates after the wedding night.

Zenelle left behind a trail of spores as she tracked Mott through the city, exposure to which caused the beatniks to mutate into disgusting, warty versions of themselves.

Discovering these powers cleared up their skin condition, they no longer hate Madman and have formed a superhero team, calling themselves the Atomics.

Around this time, their missing comrade returned from space, revealing that Zenelle had actually fallen in love with him to the degree she went against her culture and refused to eat him.

Frank has also manifested numerous psionic abilities that border on the supernatural, including the power to obtain information about an individual by making physical contact, empathy, and clairvoyance.

In 2015, Allred indicated on Twitter that the rights to Madman had reverted to him,[6] and in September 2019 has stated that he prefers to focus on comics rather than film or television adaptations for the time being.

Wizard Entertainment offered a variant of the Madman Big Blast toy without his traditional mask, showing Frank's face.

Madman appears as part of the first wave of the Legendary Comic Book Heroes action figure series in 2007, along with Judge Dredd, Savage Dragon, and Sara Pezzini of Witchblade.