just finished reading Protector - so what were the Devas? Much of the supplemental materials avoid saying what they are. Aliens? Martian terraformers? Martians? Uploads?
WELL the Devas, in my mind, are perhaps purposefully hard to pin down, especially given the great cultural remove our iron-age heroes see them from. They're derived from mankind, and we've got a bit of a sly reference to them being recognizable as some sort of mars terraforming device (or adjacent to such machines)...
but they also have the capability to upload human minds to their gestalt...
but they could just as well be grey-goo computer gods, set loose to terraform mars, who have returned to try and give earth a factory reset. (below - some folk art, depicting a certain cannibal cyborg leading a slave revolt against the devas and their polar slave-taking fanboys)
Of course, before "protector" became "protector" (and before we were forced to change the name to "First knife" for frustrating and expensive copyright reasons), the devas arose in a wonky art school project about aliens coming to earth, and retelling earth history with the artifacts. (the following are the components of that project, reformatted for the back-matter of "First Knife")
So long story short, the answer to your question is "yes".
If any of this looks cool, consider finding a copy of First Knife (a book I helped make with @ohotnig @danbensen and Jason Wordie) at your local comic shop or online! IT's a fun, weird book, and one that I am very proud to have been a part of.
