Abstract. The dynamics of complex systems are founded on universal principles that can be used to describe disparate problems ranging from particle physics to economies of societies. A corollary is that transferring ideas and results from investigators in hitherto disparate areas will cross-fertilize and lead to important new results. In this contribution, we investigate the existence of a universal behavior, if any, in solar flares, magnetic storms, earthquakes and pre-seismic electromagnetic (EM) emissions, extending the work recently published by Balasis et al. (2011a). A common characteristic in the dynamics of the above-mentioned phenomena is that their energy release is basically fragmentary, i.e. the associated events are being composed of elementary building blocks. By analogy with earthquakes, the magnitude of the magnetic storms, solar flares and pre-seismic EM emissions can be appropriately defined. Then the key question we can ask in the frame of complexity is whether the magnitude distribution of earthquakes, magnetic storms, solar flares and pre-fracture EM emissions obeys the same law. We show that these apparently different extreme events, which occur in the solar-terrestrial system, follow the same energy distribution function. The latter was originally derived for earthquake dynamics in the framework of nonextensive Tsallis statistics.