Is there any character like Batman....

[Crab007]

With the same elemental awesomeness, the same desperate mission, the same human frailty to be overcome by audacity and ingenuity, with the same epic scale of Gotham…
… without the hokey-pokey cheesy villians and sidekicks?
And I don’t mean someone like Iron Man, that’s going way too high-tech.

[Munch]

I take it you’ve never seen the Flash’s rogue gallery.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Crab007

With the same elemental awesomeness, the same desperate mission, the same human frailty to be overcome by audacity and ingenuity, with the same epic scale of Gotham…
… without the hokey-pokey cheesy villians and sidekicks?

Zorro?

[Coily]

@Crab007

With the same elemental awesomeness, the same desperate mission, the same human frailty to be overcome by audacity and ingenuity, with the same epic scale of Gotham…
… without the hokey-pokey cheesy villians and sidekicks?
And I don’t mean someone like Iron Man, that’s going way too high-tech.

Dexter Morgan?

[bup]

Green Hornet?

The Shadow?

Boston Blackie?

[Bryan_Ekers]

The Punisher? And the related characters of Mack Bolan, Remo Williams, etc.

For that matter, Batman himself has a contemporary named The Black Bat, a pulp-fiction hero, whose origin has a little more in common with Daredevil, who himself could qualify.

[WordMan]

@Crab007

With the same elemental awesomeness, the same desperate mission, the same human frailty to be overcome by audacity and ingenuity, with the same epic scale of Gotham…
… without the hokey-pokey cheesy villians and sidekicks?
And I don’t mean someone like Iron Man, that’s going way too high-tech.

The Count of Monte Cristo?

Heck, any tortured-kid-with-a-mission story would do. Madonna the pop star lost her mother at age 6 and was hell-bent on a desperate mission (fame) which she achieved by audacity and ingenuity on a scale bigger than Gotham City…but yeah, I suspect her story doesn’t fit the OP…

…which is a long way of saying: I’m not really sure what the OP is asking for…

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@Crab007

With the same elemental awesomeness, the same desperate mission, the same human frailty to be overcome by audacity and ingenuity, with the same epic scale of Gotham…

Richard Nixon?

… without the hokey-pokey cheesy villians and sidekicks?

Hmm. Kissinger was kinda hokey-pokey. “Quick, Henry! To the Nixmobile!”

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze

[Musky_Moon]

Sandman Slim.

[cmkeller]

Sherlock Holmes?

[Tom_Tildrum]

Stephen Maturin (of the Aubrey/Maturin novels)?

[Capitaine_Zombie]

The aswer is all the pulp heroes (The Shadow, Judex, yeah Black Cat too, or the original Spider).

[Argent_Towers]

I was always a huge Spawn fan as a kid, mostly because the comics and TV show were totally over the top and filled with sex and gore, but also because the world of Spawn seemed more gritty and believable. Spawn was more connected to the tradition of the old film noir private eyes who fought a corrupt and venal society that went all the way to the top - less about the cheesy supervillains that the OP dislikes. But Spawn is not for everyone.

[Sailboat]

@Bryan_Ekers

The Punisher? And the related characters of Mack Bolan, Remo Williams, etc.

For that matter, Batman himself has a contemporary named The Black Bat, a pulp-fiction hero, whose origin has a little more in common with Daredevil, who himself could qualify.

Yeah, Daredevil might be close, although tending to focus on “saving the neighborhood” stories which the OP might perceive as less “epic” than Gotham.