Silver Surfer, who is surfing throughout space touches down on a random planet to get some rest. There he sees an ominous skull-shaped architecture

He enters and sees two beings carrying a locked chest over to whom he recognizes as Mistress Death

They open the chest and out comes the spirit of Thanos who Death resurrects. Silver Surfer is hit by a beam from Thanos’ eyes then leaves the place. He later wakes from what he thought was a dream

Thanos, now with a physical body, appears to him and explains why he was brought back to life- Death has commissioned him to correct the imbalance in the universe and teleports him around the universe to show the overpopulation apparent on several planets. SS asks him how he’s going to solve this and Thanos says to him by wiping 50% of all life forms

SS races off to help a planet that Thanos cleverly had Surfer inadvertently infect the species with bacteria by just being there. He vows to find Thanos again and stop him

Kronos the Eternal/Cosmic Entity and father of A’lars/Mentor, leader of the Eternals on Titan, resurrects Drax the Destroyer after being killed by his daughter Moondragon. This is his 2nd resurrection by Kronos after being killed first by Thanos on Earth with his wife and daughter and given a new body 

Backstory on Thanos is that he once had possession of a Cosmic Cube to bend reality to his will and was defeated by the Avengers, then later on possessed the 6 Soul Gems without knowing their true purpose and was killed by Adam Warlock by being turned into stone. Thanos’ resurrection followed

Surfer flies to Earth to get info on Thanos from Avengers HQ and tells Cap that he is alive again. Before meeting Thanos, Surfer had only known him by name. Cap relays to him all that is mentioned in the previous bullet point

On his way to find Thanos, SS runs into the Impossible Man who can literally take any form or shape- he gives him strange advice to lighten up his mood as he is very stoic and if he goes up against Thanos who’s even more serious, it won’t help matters much 

After Impossible Man leaves, Surfer focuses his energy-seeking abilities to find Thanos but is eluded by different trails. He then goes to Mentor for more info on Thanos

Drax the Destroyer appears on Titan and demands Surfer to tell him where Thanos is. Surfer tries to shake him off but Drax proves very persistent. He gets away by leaving him at Four Freedoms Plaza sneaking away while Drax is watching I Love Lucy 

Thanos goes to his ship the Sanctuary III and supplants his supposed granddaughter Nebula. He is then teleported by Death and her minions to her domain to inquire why he has not yet begun his mission

Thanos beckons Surfer to the planet Pyraxlon where the two duke it out and Thanos allows Surfer to think he’s won by faking his death thus getting him off his tail