Great comic book characters seldom stay dead for long. Thanos was dead for most of a decade before returning to the realm of the living.
Unlike most resurrections, Thanos's was easily explained - Death herself sent him back. She had become concerned that the scales were out of balance and too many people were alive (there was possibly-true factoid going around at the time that half of everyone who ever lived was alive). Thanos was dispatched to correct that imbalance by killing half of everyone in the universe.
It started in the Silver Surfer. The Surfer fell asleep on a desolate world and dreamed about Death's servants releasing Thanos. When he awoke, Thanos was there, waiting for him. Thanos explained his goal and even made the Surfer complicit in killing off half the population of one world. The Surfer then collected as much background information as he could gather on Thanos. Then he went to face him. And won, surprisingly easily, leaving Thanos a smoking skeleton.
It was all a ruse. Death had warned Thanos that the Surfer could be a threat so Thanos faked his death and moved on to his real goal - the Infinity Gems.
While dead, Thanos had discovered the power the gems possessed. He convinced Death that without the gems it would take him a century to kill half the population of the universe. He then defeated a half dozen powerful beings in order to assemble the gems into the Infinity Gauntlet. This gave him total control over everything.
The only problem was that he was now Death's superior and she didn't like that one bit. Thanos spent some time trying to impress her by torturing relatives, spelling his name out with planets and removing half the population of the universe with the snap of his fingers. Death remained unimpressed.
All of this gave time for Adam Warlock to return to life along with Gamora and Pip the Troll (although Gamora had the bad luck to be in the half of the universe that was removed). Warlock assembled the remaining heroes of Earth along with the cosmic beings in a complicated plan to defeat Thanos.
The heroes were totally outmatched but Thanos thought that Death might look favorably on him if he gave them a chance so he cut off his extra senses. This almost worked. While fighting Captain America, Thanos raised his hand to strike and the Surfer grabbed for the Infinity Gauntlet. And missed.
Next the various cosmic entities tried and failed. At the end, Thanos defeated the entity known as Infinity - the personification of the universe itself - and took it's place. This left his body unguarded and Nebula, one of the relatives Thanos had been torturing, seized the Gauntlet and reversed all of Thanos's actions. That meant that she had to fight the cosmic entities all over again. While she was distracted, Warlock slipped back into the Soul Gem and used it to break the connection between the stones for a moment and rip the gauntlet from her hand. Warlock the emerged with the gauntlet and sent everyone home.
The cosmic entities complained that Warlock was too unstable to control the universe and he agreed to divide the gems up, giving them to protectors. These turned out to be Starlin's various creations - Adam himself, Gamora, Drax, Moon Dragon and Pip. The sixth gem went to someone secret (hint, Thanos). Together they formed the Infinity Watch to protect the universe from threats.
Unfortunately, the first two threats came from Warlock. While he possessed the gauntlet he exorcised himself of his good and evil parts. They proved to be as dangerous as Thanos.
Along the way, Thanos was redefined. Rejected by Death, he became a pragmatic survivor. He was similar to Magneto in the X-Men movies - someone who is very handy to have on your side but who might turn on you when your goals diverge.
Eventually Thanos gained ultimate power once more. This time he inspected the universe and discovered a cancerous hole in it. Too many people were coming back from the dead. He recreated the universe, fully expecting to perish in the attempt but managed to survive, back at his usual power level.
Starlin's exit from the character involved Thanos helping Galactus, the world-eater who had become infected. Thanos cured him, then warned him to be more careful in the future.
Considering that Galactus is at the top of the cosmic entities, that gives you an idea of Thanos's self-worth.
From there other writers took over Thanos and he was no longer just Jim Starlin's vision.
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