Is the viewer supposed to see Bruce Spence as the same or different?

Pretty sure different.

I was very confused about this. He has such a recognizable appearance and when he nor Max recognized each other, I was just confused.

I always assumed a twin brother that had been separated early in the apocalypse and never reconnected. Dumb luck or the Hand of Fate that led Max to both.

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WORDS MEAN THINGS! Also, before you come to bitch about a plot hole, rewatch the show/movie.

I think the same only because he did end up with the blonde at the end of Road Warrior and he does fly a vehicle.
I just wished Max would've said, "Partners!" or something to hint at their previous encounter.

If its simply the same actor then why not give him something different to make him stand out?

Just because people want it to be the same character doesn't mean it is the same character. The Gyro captain is the chief of the Great Northern tribe. He's not Jedediah the jalopy pilot. Two different characters played by the same actor.

This is a technique that was used by tv and film quite frequently in the 70's and 80's:

Randi Oaks in Season 2 of "CHiPs" was a car thief named Kim Balford and then in Seasons 3-5 was a regular cast member as highway patrol officer Bonnie Clark.

Albert Popwell was a bank robber in the original "Dirty Harry" in which Clint gives his famous line. Then in "Magnum Force" he's a sadistic pimp who's murdered, then in the "Enforcer" he's a radical black activist and informer and finally in "Sudden Impact" he is Harry's police force buddy.

Kas Garas also played four different characters, usually bad guys, in four different episodes in four different seasons in "The Streets of SF"

Martin Ferrero played a bad guy who gets killed in the pilot episode of "Miami Vice" and then 8 episodes later stars in a recurring role for the rest of the series as Izzy, the Vice Cops' main informant.

This list goes on and on, but the point is, they're not the same character, just the same actor.

It's a different character, quite obviously. The people who think it's the same clearly haven't seen Road Warrior. I don't know why people think this sort of thing is unheard of.

Some of these people need to see things like the Dollars "trilogy"...you see the same handful of actors in multiple movies all playing different characters...the main bad guy in Fistful of Dollars is the bad guy in For A Few Dollars More. Why are people acting like actors don't play different characters in the same series? Eastwood technically plays 3 different characters (though they're all the same cause it's Eastwood, not that that's a bad thing), the Man with no Name thing came from American marketing material. He is named in all 3 movies and he has a different name in all 3. Joe, Manco and Blondie.

Maud Adams in the Bond series played 2 different characters in different films. As did Charles Gray. Their characters were both murdered in their first film appearance.

So I know the 2 pilots in Mad Max could be a tad confusing because Spence is a pilot in both movies, but it's pretty obvious for those who have actually seen Road Warrior that Spence is playing a different character in Beyond Thunderdome.