Near the end of Amazing Spider-Man #621, Mr. Negative arrives in an alley he believes Spider-Man is in. He finds only a piece of Spidey's costume. Negative, knowing Spider-Man is somewhere nearby, launches into this bit about how by his code of honor, he has to really bring the hammer down on the web-slinger, now that Spider-Man had the temerity to invade his home.
From some unseen position, Spider-Man fires back that according to his code, he has to take Mr. negative's plans, and feed them back to him even worse. His reason being, Mr. negative invaded his home first. Mr. Negative is confused, until Spider-Man explains that by "home", he meant New York. That's just like an only child, to claim everything in sight belongs to them.
Well, that's a nice proclamation from our hero, vowing to defend his city from the crime lord. Describing what he'll do as taking 'whatever you're planning and give it back to you in IMAX 3-D' was a little clunky, but I guess something like "give it back to you tenfold" would have sounded more villainous. The only problem is, Spider-Man doesn't seem to be speaking from a position of strength at the moment.
Yes, as he and Negative are having their little chat, Black Cat is stealing back the vial of Spider-Man's blood Mr. Negative had, meaning he won't be able to make anymore of his special poison gas that's only toxic to people who share DNA with Spider-Man. That does help Spider-Man a bit. Still, the reason Mr. Negative was looking for Spider-Man in that alley is because he put him there. Spidey took a swing at, Negative blocked it with one hand, then hit Spider-Man with that same palm and sent him through, by Spider-Man's account 'two windows and three walls'.
While Mr. Negative might be slightly surprised that Spider-Man not only survived the hit, but is already up, moving, and still determined to stop him, I don't see that he would be terribly concerned. "You're going to stop me, Spider-Man? The way you stopped my hand with your face?" Well, Mr. Negative would say something better than that, but the same principle applies.
Maybe it works better if I think of it as Spider-Man speaking to the audience, letting them know he was caught off guard, but he's not out of the fight. I think Roger Stern and Tom DeFalco did the same thing at points in their Spider-Man versus the Juggernaut and Firelord (respectively) stories. Spider-Man would be swinging into battle, having struggled to survive to that point, but vowing to stop the other guy, no matter what. The antagonist was nowhere nearby in those cases, so he was speaking to himself, and to us. In this case, he's making this promise to the villain, who had previously dealt with him with ease. It doesn't work as well.
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