In Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, readers are experiencing the adventures of a version of the title character who has achieved a rare victory: becoming part of a family who can help him shoulder his responsibility to protect New York. Peter Parker, his wife Mary Jane (who used the technology of the supervillain known as the Regent to become the superhero Spinneret) and his daughter Annie (AKA the youthful hero Spiderling) are a loving and supportive crime fighting team, who inspire each other to be the best they can be -- but they're about to face their greatest challenge.

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That challenge arrives this week in Renew Your Vows #11, by series artist-turned-writer, Ryan Stegman, and new artist Brian Level. Young Normie Osborn revives his family's legacy of evil, and as the new Green Goblin declares war on Spider-Man. CBR spoke with Stegman about the story of Normie's revenge, which will close out his run on the book.

CBR: You've been part of Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows since issue #1, but you recently moved from drawing the book to writing it. That's something that I don't think is widely known.

Ryan Stegman: [Laughs] Yeah. I recently tweeted about a review I read where they credited Gerry Conway because he had co-written the previous two issues with me, and I straight up wrote issue #10. They seemed to think he was still the writer, and I found that funny. Then I felt bad because they felt bad, but it was a strange situation where suddenly the artist is just writing the book.

Art from Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #12 by Brian Level and Jesus Aburto

What's it been like taking over as the series' writer?

Scary. [Laughs] I had been kind of hounding Marvel to let me do some writing, but I thought it would be on a smaller scale, like some short stories, because I've done a short story for Marvel before [in 2015's Uncanny Inhumans #0]. So when they offered this, I very much had a moment of, “Can I really do this?”

I've always written for myself. As a kid, I wanted to be a writer and an artist, and possibly a writer even more than an artist. So there was a moment where I was like, “I don't really know for sure if I'm going to do this right, because I've never really had myself put on a scale this large. I had to come to terms with it and just do it, and it's been really fun.

Writing Renew Your Vows has given me whole new respect for editors, too. Not that I ever disrespected them, but I get it now. I've been an artist for a while. Usually when I turn stuff in my editor just says, “Great!” And that's it, but now that I'm working on this I'm on the phone all time with my editor Darren Shan. We're hammering out story details, and Darren has been so good about steering me in the right direction. He was the one who gave me this opportunity and he's helped so much.

It feels like you're taking over the book right at the time of the payoff of the Osborn family story that's been developing in the background of Renew Your Vows since issue #1. It's also interesting that you're using Normie and the Osborns in this book since its main characters are a family that help each other rise up and find their best selves. Is the Osborn family meant to be the opposite side of that coin, to show that families can be destructive as well as healthy?

That's very perceptive of you. Part of the reason why I love this book and was so excited to take this job when it was offered in the first place was that I love family dynamics in comic books. I love action, love stories, and family dynamics. So I'm a big Fantastic Four fan and a big Spider-Man fan.

And yes, that's something I'm very interested in playing up. I want to show how Annie Parker's life is sort of ideal, but not everybody is blessed with the same kind of life and not every kid feels loved all the time the way that they should. So it's kind of an interesting juxtaposition of Normie, somebody who lost his father, and Annie, who has the perfect life, on the flip side.

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It's been interesting to watch Normie's fascination with Annie over the course of the series and how that might have gone off the rails in issue #10 with their face to face confrontation.

Yeah, it's questionable what type of fascination he has with her. It seems to be based on attraction, which is kind of creepy. [Laughs] I think he could also be attracted to her sort of joy in life.

Normie has always been sort of a creepy background character in the Spider-Man titles, and it feels like with Renew Your Vows, which is set in a world where his father never came back from the dead, you're taking that to sort of a logical conclusion.

Right. There's definitely some twists and turns coming though. A couple people tweeted at me that they think they know what's going to happen. They don't.

And I was very interested in giving some depth to Normie's character. I wanted to have some reasons for the creepiness.

One of the events pivotal to understanding Normie is his father's death back in 1993's Spectacular Spider-Man #200. We saw you reference that issue in Renew Your Vows #10, and I remember reading it as teenager and being emotionally wrecked by the ending where a dying Harry tells Peter he's his best friend.

When I went back and reread a bunch of Spider-Man issues as research to prepare to write this, that was one of the issues I came across. As soon as I saw that moment I realized it played perfectly into the story we're telling.

It feels like the wildcard in this story is Normie's mother, Liz Allen. What can you tell us about her role in what's coming up?

She's lost her husband and has seen this sort of dance of what happens with the Goblins in the Osborn family. And while she's damaged, she still very much wants her son to thrive. So she's trying to protect him in the only way which she seems to know how. She can't tell him no. He's the C.E.O. of this company and he's obviously super smart and he's willful.

So instead of telling him no, which a good parent would do, she tries to subvert him. [Laughs] We'll see how that plays out. I think the character of Normie will be able to be used in a lot of interesting ways by the time we're done with this story.

What can you tell us about how the action will play out in these next few issues? It feels like things could go dark and sort of horrific like they tend to do when the Green Goblin shows up.

That's a tough question to answer because I'm worried about revealing too much. I don't think it will go how many people are expecting though. This is a different situation with different players. This is not Spider-Man versus the Green Goblin. This is the Spider-Family versus a Goblin character.

These next two issues of Renew Your Vows will be drawn by artist Brian Level, who did the Namor story that ran through the Secret Empire anthology, Brave New World. What's it like working with Brian on these issues? What do you enjoy most about his art?

Brian is a good friend of mine and working with him is super easy, especially since we talk on Skype all the time where he'll show me his layouts and he'll share his ideas for pages. His ideas are great too. So we often end up with something better than I started with because the line of communication is so open.

His stuff is very dynamic. He and I both have a deep love of guys like John Romita Jr. Brian kind of has a similar approach where everything has a volume and weight to it that I really like. It's very expressive and that's what this book needs.

The story you and Brian are doing comes to a close in issue #12, and that also marks the end of your run on Renew Your Vows, correct?

Yeah, Jody Houser and Nick Roche take over the book with issue #13 and they jump eight years into the future. So they'll have a clean slate. They can latch on to some of the things that we've done or they can go in their own direction. I'm excited to see what they do with the book.

Finally, what's next for you? Are you going to do some more writing? Or stick to art?

I don't have any current plans to write more, but I've certainly made it known that I'd like to write more, and when this job came up I think Marvel was in the dark about my writing ability. So they couldn't in good conscience say the book was mine for long term, and in case I was a disaster they brought in another writer. Jody happens to be an excellent writer too. You know that if you've read Mother Panic or anything else she's done.

I have talked to Marvel a little bit about writing more. We'll see if that's a possibility. I'm going to continue to draw though obviously. I love drawing. That's my passion. I am working on something art wise that I can't discuss yet. I hope they announce it soon.