How do I comment out a block of tags in XML?

You can use that style of comment across multiple lines (which exists also in HTML)

<detail>
    <band height="20">
    <!--
      Hello,
         I am a multi-line XML comment
         <staticText>
            <reportElement x="180" y="0" width="200" height="20"/>
            <text><![CDATA[Hello World!]]></text>
          </staticText>
      -->
     </band>
</detail>