They are definitely one and the same. I suspect Fleisher's initial work on the 3-volume Encyclopedia project seved as a sort of foot in the door for scripting work at DC.
I would be interested in hearing of any Superman stories actually written by Fleisher.
In my opinion, and regardless of his artisitic contributions to comics, Fleisher has contributed some of the most historically important critical and scholarly writing to the subject of superhero comics. I think that he deserves at least equal consideration along with Elliot Maggin in terms of importance in the post-Weisinger era.
Beyond the general importance of his encyclopedias, his actual articles/entries on Superman and Clark Kent are among some of the best and most insightful on those subjects. I would direct readers to section H of Fleisher's Superman article (TGSB pg 381) for an excellent essay on "The Man Himself (as Clark Kent)".
I would love to know what Fleisher is doing now. Google turns up nothing since the early 90s. As mentioned on another thread, in the 1980s he was involved in a libel suit with Harlan Ellison and The Comics Journal over Ellison's comments about his comics work:
"I did an interview with Groth in the The Comics Journal," Ellison said. "I was asked what writers I like, and I said [Michael Fleisher]. I said he was bug[****], he's certifiable, like [H.P.] Lovecraft... but what I didn't know was that Michael Fleisher had been going to a psychiatrist three times a week for 11 years and he really was crazy." He explained how Fleisher filed a libel suit against Groth and Ellison soon after the interview was published, leading to a tenuous partnership between the two.
(stars mine)
--quoted from 1993 Ellison speech here:
http://www.talkaboutpeople.com/group/alt.fan.harlan-ellison/messages/15966.htmlThere is another controversial article about the case (written by Charles Pratt) here:
http://www.ansible.co.uk/Ansible/c_platt.html