How Palpatine Challenged Darth Vader to a 1v1 Duel

Right after Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, Palpatine didn’t waste any time. In Darth Vader (2017) #5, we see what happens next—and it’s not just a mission, it’s a full-on transformation. Palpatine sends Vader to find a Jedi, kill them, take their lightsaber, and corrupt its crystal. It’s the Sith version of a rite of passage.

While trying to bleed the kyber crystal, Vader has a powerful Force vision. In that vision, he resists the Dark Side, purifies the crystal, returns to Coruscant, and uses a green blade to kill Palpatine. He even goes back to Obi-Wan and calls him “Master” again. But that path never becomes real.

He wakes up and rejects it completely. Filled with anger and pain, he forces the crystal to bleed, turning it red. That’s when the real lesson begins.

The Fight That Was Meant to Break Him

After Vader returned, Palpatine brought him to a quiet, abandoned part of Coruscant called The Works. No crowd. No setup. Just a cold, industrial platform and a lightsaber to the face.

The Emperor launched the fight without warning. He moved fast—way too fast. Within seconds, Vader lost his saber and was thrown across the platform like nothing. It wasn’t even a real fight. It was domination.

But Palpatine wasn’t trying to kill him. He was trying to teach him.

As Vader struggled to get up, Palpatine told him the truth: he was still thinking like a Jedi. Relying only on the lightsaber. That was the real failure. A Sith doesn’t limit himself like that. The lightsaber is just one tool. The Dark Side gives you everything. The Force, the environment, even your enemy’s fear—use it all.

To drive the point home, Palpatine started throwing metal debris at Vader using the Force. It wasn’t just painful. It was humiliating.

A Hard Lesson That Stuck

This moment changed how Vader fought forever. From then on, he didn’t just fight with his saber. He fought with everything he had. You can see it clearly when he faced Luke on Cloud City—ripping pipes off the wall, attacking from all directions, making the battlefield itself part of the fight. That all came from this lesson.

Palpatine’s duel wasn’t a challenge. It was a way to erase the Jedi inside Vader and replace it with something else. Something colder. More dangerous.

That’s how the Sith operate. No honor. No fairness. Just control.

And for Vader, this beating wasn’t just physical. It was the moment he stopped being a fallen Jedi… and became a true Sith.