Forgot to mention: following the real Marvel UK's dissolution and the licence to use the name being sold to Panini in the mid 1990s, they published numerous UK originated stories featuring Spidey and other characters in titles like Spectacular Spider-Man and Marvel Heroes. However, unlike the actual Marvel UK material published up until 1995, these are not considered to be in official Earth-616 continuity. Disney later decreed that no stories featuring Marvel characters should be created outside the US (thanks, Disney) which put a stop to Panini's UK originated Marvel content.

I don't know of a direct followup to that article, but you might like these:

BACK ISSUE #56 (84 pages, and now in FULL COLOR, $8.95) lets the “Avengers Assemble,” starring Marvel Comics’ mightiest super-team! This issue features: Writer ROGER STERN’S acclaimed 1980s Avengers run, West Coast Avengers, early Avengers toys, and histories of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Wonder Man. Featuring art by and/or commentary from JOHN and SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, BRETT BREEDING, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, BOB HALL, AL MILGROM, TOM MORGAN, TOM PALMER, JOE SINNOTT, and more. With a GEORGE PÉREZ cover spotlighting the Avengers’ “Big Three.” Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

ALTER EGO #103 (84 pages with color, $7.95) focuses on the early career of ace comics writer STEVE ENGLEHART at Marvel, Warren, et al. We cover it all: The Defenders—Captain America—Master of Kung Fu—The Beast—Mantis—with rare art & artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, JIM STARLIN, TOM SUTTON, DON HECK, BOB BROWN, and others.

There actually was a section of my article covering the Englehart run that was cut for length. Here it is, picking up from the "coda" (Roy's term) covering the Avengers/Defenders War:

The Power of Babel

Caught between warring Zodiac factions, the Avengers escape an orbiting death-trap with the unexpected help of the blind Libra. Why would a hardened criminal rescue our heroes? Because he is Mantis' father, or so he claims (#120-22). This startling revelation is the opening salvo in a 20-issue saga that will span three galaxies and millions of years, touch the lives of dozens of characters, witness three super-hero weddings and, for the first time, the death of an Avenger. It is the most ambitious, far-reaching story yet seen in the title.

Steve Englehart's magnum opus will not only encompass #120-135 of the Avengers book but also the first four issues of Giant-Size Avengers, an annual-sized spin-off title published every third month, as well as crossing over with Captain America, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange and Fantastic Four, all but the FF scripted by “Stainless Steve.” Much of the sub-plotting focuses on the romantic quadrangle of the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, the Swordsman and Mantis. Never letting these interludes slow the main narrative, Englehart uses two panels here, a half-page there, to peel back the stereotypes of android, mutant, swashbuckler and martial artist, revealing the flawed, fallible souls beneath. His dense plots require crystal-clear storytelling and, despite frequent shuffling, his artists — Bob Brown and Don Heck (#120), John Buscema and Heck (#121), Brown and Mike Esposito (#122-23), Buscema and Dave Cockrum (#124-25), Rich Buckler and Dan Adkins (GS#1), Brown and Cockrum (#126), Sal Buscema and Joe Staton (#127-34), Cockrum solo (GS #2), Cockrum and Joe Giella (GS #3), George Tuska and Frank Chiaramonte (#135), Heck and John Tartaglione (GS #4) — rise to the occasion.

Mantis' memories of growing up on the streets of Saigon clash with Libra's tale of his marriage to the sister of crime boss Monsieur Khruul, of her death and his blinding at Khruul's orders, and of finding refuge for himself and his baby daughter in the hidden temple of the Priests of Pama. The Swordsman, weak from injuries sustained in #117, flies to Viet Nam to avenge these crimes. Captured and tortured by Khruul, he spills Libra's secret. The Avengers discover the priests massacred by Khruul's mobsters and the crime lord himself torn to ribbons, warning them with his dying breath to “beware… the Star-Stalker!” (#123). Star-Stalker is the planet-devouring menace the order of Pama, descended from a cult of pacifist Kree, was created to combat (#124). No sooner has the dragon-like alien met defeat than the Avengers become caught up in Captain Marvel's ongoing struggle with Thanos, the death-worshipping Titan whose acquisition of the Cosmic Cube threatens all life, defending Earth from his armada of interplanetary mercenaries (#125, Captain Marvel #27-33).

Editor Roy Thomas guest-scripts Giant-Size Avengers #1, in which the assemblers battle Nuklo, the radioactive mutant son of Bob and Madelaine Frank, alias 1940s super-heroes, the Whizzer and Miss America (the story's surprise revelation, that the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are also the children of the now-widowed Whizzer, will later prove to be a misunderstanding). Back in the main title, the Avengers lose three members in quick succession: the Black Panther resigns from active duty following the team's defeat of Klaw and Solarr (#126), a disillusioned Steve Rogers retires his costumed identity in the wake of the Secret Empire scandal (Captain America #176) and Quicksilver formally quits to marry Crystal of the Inhuman Royal Family (#127, Fantastic Four #150). Thier absences will be keenly felt during the madness yet to come.

Kang War

It begins the morning after the Scarlet Witch and her new tutor in witchcraft, Agatha Harkness, defeat the hunchbacked sorcerer Necrodamus (#128). A star appears over Avengers Mansion heralding “the completion of the Celestial Madonna,” whose child will be the mightiest being in the universe. Kang, obsessed with siring that child, kidnaps our heroes until he can determine whether Wanda, Mantis or Agatha is the Madonna. Swordsman, his sanity teetering since Mantis rejected him to pursue the Vision, is left behind by a contemptuous Conqueror. Miss Harkness mystically clues the swashbuckler in to Kang's whereabouts: the tomb of Rama-Tut. Searching the pyramid, Swordsman finds an unlikely ally in Rama-Tut himself (#129). The pharaoh, an older version of Kang out to undo his past crimes, helps Swordsman and a newly returned Hawkeye stop his younger self's plans to trigger World War III. When the two temporal counterparts meet face to face, the resulting paradox reveals Mantis as the Madonna. If he can't have her, Kang decides, no one can. The Swordsman leaps in front of the lethal ray blast and, as the battling Kang and Rama are swept away into the timestream, an Avenger dies.

Heroes have occasionally perished in Marvel Comics but never before has an active member of a super-team made the ultimate sacrifice. Englehart and Dave Cockrum craft one of the most poignant death scenes ever seen in comic books. “I'm a failure,” the dying Swordsman gasps, “I'm just one of those people who doesn't count.” “Every Avenger counts, Swordsman,” Iron Man replies. “Every one” (GS #2).

While Wanda remains behind in New York to continue her lessons in magic, the Avengers lay their fallen comrade to rest in the temple of the Priests of Pama (#130). Kang, rescued from the timestream by Immortus, overpowers and imprisons the Master of Time. Using Immortus' devices, the Conqueror summons the Frankenstein Monster, Wonder Man, the original Human Torch, Midnight, the Ghost a.k.a. the Flying Dutchman, and Baron Zemo to serve as his Legion of the Unliving (#131). The Avengers' battle against the Legion goes badly, with Iron Man slain and the Vision grievously damaged. Once an infuriated Thor forces Kang to flee, Immortus sets things right, sending the Legion back to their proper times and healing the fallen assemblers (#132 and GS #3, both with dialogue by Roy Thomas).

A grateful Immortus offers Mantis the opportunity to learn her true origins, guided by a sentient “synchro-staff.” Thus it is that she and the other Avengers witness the first encounter between the then-altruistic Skrulls and the rival species inhabiting Hala, the humanoid Kree and the sentient trees called the Cotati. Rather than share the technological marvels offered by the visitors, the Kree exterminate the Cotati, slaughter the Skrulls and sieze their starship (#133). Millennia later, the despised cult of Kree pacifists discovers how to ward off the Star-Stalker, persuading the Supreme Intelligence to establish temples throughout the universe as a precaution against the marauder's return. Unbeknownst to the SI, the cultists have been caring for a new generation of Cotati and take the telepathic plants with them into exile (#134). Returned to Earth and the present, the assemblers encounter Libra, the Earth-born priestess of Titan called Moondragon… and the glowing green ghost of the Swordsman (#135)! Joined by Immortus, Libra and the “ghost” explain that Mantis and Moondragon were raised by their respective priests to be “the perfect human.” But where the monks of Shao-Lom kept Moondragon cut off from her fellow Earthmen, the Priests of Pama wiped Mantis' memories and implanted new ones, setting her to wander the streets of Saigon and experience firsthand the human condition. Ironically, it is Mantis' very imperfections — her pettiness, her cruelty, her lusts — that make her the perfect mate for the eldest surviving Cotati, whose mind now animates the Swordsman's corpse (GS #4).

The Vision, meanwhile, has been on a solo trek through time. Aware as a result of their earlier encounter that his body is that of the Human Torch, Vision and his synchro-staff watch as Ultron-5 forces the android's dissolute creator, Professor Phineas Horton, to alter the Torch's powers and appearance, replacing his consciousness with Simon William's brainwave patterns (#133-35). But when the staff tries to reunite him with his teammates, the synthezoid materializes instead at the Earth's core where a vengeful Dormammu has imprisoned the Scarlet Witch. Her love for the Vision overcomes the demon lord's mental dominance, allowing the heroic couple to escape (GS #4).

The Avengers are reunited just in time to thwart Kang's last desperate attempt to claim the Celestial Madonna for himself. All that remains is the happy ending, as Immortus — revealed as yet another incarnation of Kang — presides over the marriages of Wanda and the Vision and of Mantis and the Cotati/Swordsman (GS #4).

Thus endeth the excerpt.

Cei-U!
I summon the lost paragraphs!

The only way to determine if that's true is to see which long lasting books that Kirby produced had them return.  I'm just reading through Kamandi, so I haven't been able to see if he brought back anyone yet. I think He did in Demon, but again, I can't be sure.

He brought back the Red Skull when he returned to Captain America in '76 or so when he returned to Marvel after his DC stint.



-M

I guess you're going to base you theory on this.  I don't think Kirby avoided reusing villains. There is a certain drama to a character reappearing at the proper time.

Not any more. It doesn't sound like the case is strong enough. I still have my suspicions regarding the FF in particular, but I don't think I can make a watertight argument. I appreciate the feedback.