WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: Age of Rebellion -- Darth Vader, by Greg Pak, Ramon Bachs, Stephane Paitreau and Travis Lanham, on sale now.

The Star Wars universe crafted one of the most intriguing dynamics in pop culture through the relationship between Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Holes first appeared in their bond when Vader tried to recruit his son, Luke Skywalker, in The Empire Strikes Back so they could rule the galaxy together, eventually culminating in the Jedi formerly known as Anakin Skywalker tossing his boss into a reactor aboard the Death Star.

With this tension between them turning to obvious hate, as more of the curtain is now being peeled back in Marvel's books, it really becomes highly apparent in the latest Age of Rebellion one-shot that Palpatine's method of mentorship was well and truly the most ill-advised in the galaxy.

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We've witnessed Vader's scheming on Star Wars Rebels as well, where we gained more insight into his lust for power and growing desire to usurp the Emperor. Extra material like this provides much-needed context as the films didn't touch on this, with the exception of those big moments mentioned above where he was just a glorified lapdog.

Fans did have questions as to when the duo became fractured because in the prequel trilogy, namely Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine still had a fatherly bond to Anakin, which is what lured him to the Dark Side in the first place, along with the promise of immortality. So when we see Palpatine treating Vader with disdain in these new comics, it leaves you wondering why the Emperor wouldn't continue honing and perfecting this instrument of destruction, an instrument who is also a surrogate son.

In this book, he has Vader constantly kneeling before him, belittling him in front his Governors. Palpatine even decides to cut the Sith Lord's ego down by having him serve the rash Governor Ahr, all so it could fuel Vader's hate. But why would he want to do this knowing it'll turn his student against him? Sure, we know hate will strengthen the Dark Side's grip on Vader, but it also keeps moving the disgraced Jedi towards a path of betrayal; something Palpatine told him about in the tale of Darth Plagueis. In other words, the Emperor planted the seed and through ill-advised tactics like this, he's nurturing a vengeful mindset by consistently treating Vader like crap.

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When he makes Vader kneel too, Palpatine admits he knows his servant hates it, but it doesn't matter as the overlord derives pleasure from it. It's actually straight-up bullying at times and feels so counterintuitive to building loyalty, especially when the Emperor physically whips him with his Force Lightning. All this does cultivate is an environment where Vader has more reason to stab Palpatine in the back because he isn't being conditioned as a warrior, he's being disrespected as a child.

There's even a panel where we see other memories from Anakin's life where he felt the same kind of mistreatment, with the most notable one being how the Jedi Council treated him as a junior despite performing several missions of senior rank. This scene alone reiterates that Vader always planned to turn on his boss, and it wasn't just some impromptu decision.

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Ultimately, as Vader and Ahr tussle back and forth with verbal jousts, all we can say is Palpatine's plan here to teach his student a lesson was stupid because it helped build the road to his own undoing. He may have tried to hack away at Vader's ego, but in doing so, subjecting him to Ahr's ridicule and a bunch of subsequent suicide missions that could have killed his pupil, all Palpatine did was stroke his own ego rather than earn Vader's trust. And we all know how that narcissistic mode turned out for the Emperor -- it ended with years of rage boiling over and Vader offering him a most emphatic resignation letter.