WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Star Wars #72 from Greg Pak, Phil Noto and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Director Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi left fans with the mind-blowing concept that the Jedi weren't the only people who could access the Force, which was evident with the movie's final shot of a stablehand using Force-telekinesis to grab his broom on Canto Bight. In Marvel's Star Wars comics, which are set in the first trilogy era, we've now met Warba, a young thief who has partnered with Luke and is showing him now non-Jedi can use the Force, a message he'd pass on to Rey decades later.
However, as Warba mentors him and offers him a lesson in exactly what the Force is and what it was always meant to be, Star Wars #72 pays homage to Rey's first lesson from Luke, and it riffs on the prank he played on her in The Last Jedi.
In The Last Jedi, when Rey trained with Luke on the aquatic planet Ahch-To, outside the ruins of the sacred temple, she sat on a cliff with Luke for her first lesson. He told her the Force was a mystical energy that flowed through everyone's bodies and bound everyone, not just the Jedi, together. An overly anxious Rey reached out while he spoke and asked her if she could feel it, knowing full well her mind was playing tricks on her as he tickled her with a reed.
She exclaimed out loud she could feel the Force only for Luke to smack her with the reed in a lighthearted moment. Now, this issue puts Luke into an almost identical situation as he learns about the Force from Warba.
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On the desert planet Sergia, Luke is trying to save some Rebels there, but he's torn since he wants to ask Warba things about the Force he didn't learn from Obi-Wan Kenobi. He needs to find the Imperial Patrol first though and disable it for the good of everyone, not just the Resistance, so Warba decides to aid him with the first lesson. She tells him that she grew up on the Jedi planet, Jedha, and learned from the Guardians of the Whills what the Force really was. With his eyes closed, Warba asks him to feel the energy while she uses her powers to manipulate sand particles, but when it's time for Luke to reveal what he feels as he gets excited in a Rey-like fashion, Warba disappears, with his lightsaber.
Feeling betrayed, Luke chases after her and wonders if anything she said was the truth. Warba is a thief after all, and could be looking to sell the lightsaber, which belonged to Anakin Skywalker before he turned into Darth Vader. Still, she's displayed Jedi mind-tricks as well, so Luke knows there's some truth to her story, but this double-cross is still unexpected.
In his dealings with Rey, Luke was much more genuine and really wanted to turn her into a warrior whose destiny it was to save the galaxy. In sharp contrast, Warba believes that Jedi are as much of a problem as the Sith and the Empire, and she believes she's saving Luke's life by stealing his weapon. While he'll get it back before too long, she still taught Luke a valuable lesson about being careful who to trust in a galaxy that's out to get him.