Similar from Omar from The Wire mentioned above Mike(played by Jonathan Banks) from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul had elements of being a vigilante. He would often use wit and street smarts to trick the people he was after to either get arrested or kill each other.
This is slightly more realistic than a vigilante going around blowing people away ala The Punisher—someone manipulating and tricking people into incriminating situations and/or fatal situations.
Michael Weston from the show Burn Notice had a similar MO.
Marvel’s Moon Knight, apart from the Plot Armor. He has a fair amount of mental issues and does gather intelligence as a cabbie. The white costume is pretty bold (and foolish).
He did have a semi-semi-plausible explanation. If you looked at his face, you’d really just remember the mask.
Depending on the creative team, he often has Batman-style gadgets and vehicles. He also sometimes has magical weapons and/or straight up supernatural powers (at one point his strength was tied to the phase of the moon - near peak human potential at the new moon to Spider-Man level strength at the full moon). He’s also had, at times, a highly cinematic version of Multiple Personality Disorder. I don’t think Moon Knight is more plausible than Batman or the Punisher, who were ruled out by the OP.
And when he did get hit, it was very believable. He bled, and had a limp for the rest of the story (along with a puffy lip that would get kissed by that week’s femme fatale).
And he wasn’t masked as a secret identity; he’d been dead long enough that he was just The Spirit. So no day job to worry about like the Green Hornet or Bats.
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Just wanted to mention that I’m now on the lookout for places to use my new favorite word: implausibler.
I’m not sure they “stuck”, except in the sense that they alerted the (non-corrupt) police to what had happened. We haven’t seen what happens afterwards, and Pellegrini certainly can’t be convicted for what’s on the tape, nor for the embezzlement that a) didn’t happen (since the Foundation got the money in the end), and b) was actually committed by someone working under a fake name who disappeared. Pellegrini will be out and about in no time, although Dumont is probably dumb enough to have left an incriminating paper trail. Of course Pellegrini’s daughter, like his ex-wife, will now be working against him.
Diop’s anonymity was definitely a stretch; even if we accept that he’s got plenty of cash and resources (either stolen or from his friend) and mad hacking skillz and unlikely allies, he’s not exactly someone who blends into the scenery easily, so this is the big “suspension of disbelief” point in the series. I sometimes wonder if there’s a deliberate racial point being made here - nobody really looks at black people, especially in working class uniforms, so Diop plays that to his advantage. Once they know who he is, however, he shouldn’t be able to use that.
I would submit Jonah Hex (at least until the time travel silliness) as a plausible (sort of)hero. No super powers, no gadgets, just a lot of will to live.
Paladin? He was a justice for hire! That seems to be the very definition of vigilantism - at least by proxy. Although the show tried to portray him as law-abiding, my memory tells me he would bend that to goad bad guys into a battle they couldn’t win.
And probably more than any other ‘hero’ mentioned here, he was completely mortal. Relying only on his steely nerves and a fast draw.
ETA: thinking about it, most all of these hero’s are fighting for someone or something else and not to avenge some personal affront.
There’s the “Scourge of the Underworld” from a bunch of Marvel storylines in the late 80’s-early 90’s. The “character” is actually numerous operatives of a vigilante organization, armed only with exhaustive research, expert disguise (but nothing that can’t be done by contemporary Hollywood costuming) and infiltration skills, and a gun with armor-piercing bullets. Their M.O. is either sniping from a distance or sneaking up in disguise and shooting by surprise, and seldom do any confrontational fighting, and have been killed on occasion.
Fun fact: Richard Boone, the actor who played Paladin, was the Great-Grandnephew of Daniel Boone. I thought it was an interesting bit of meta-reality. that an actor playing a Western folk hero is related to an actual Western folk hero.
How about Bill Hodges from Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes trilogy (and the TV series)? He’s a retired cop trying to solve an old case on his own. The first couple of books have no supernatural elements.
I was also going to mention Dexter Morgan but someone beat me to it.
James Bond has been mentioned but he’s not a vigilante, he is employed by the British government to do what he does.
