I am thinking about introducing a terrorist group as my main antagonist. They are pretty much like ISIS (and in the story have their origins tied to ISIS and other groups) basically they plot attacks in Western Countries. A lot of what they do is based on real life events. I worry for obvious reasons this will not go over well with readers. My other concern is the portrayal a lot of members of this group are well when I created the group I drew inspiration from Marvel's Hydra and GI Joe's Cobra that being said I don't want to glorify the group in any shape or form. Is this too controversial?
In my opinion, you shouldn't really worry about controversy in your writing. If you want to write about a terrorist group, then write about a terrorist group. Heck, we probably could use a story about one with sympathetic characters, it would be a good way of looking at this problem with another perspective. My one suggestion is if you do end up writing this, be sure to do A LOT of research. A topic like that could easily turn into a really bad insult if written the wrong way.
I don't know about controversial, but mimicking recent real life tragedies could certainly come across as tacky and insensitive. It's a divisive sort of thing. If you've read threads on here about other, similar issues, you know that some people will tell you to tread carefully with something like this, while others be of the opinion that you can write whatever you want - which is true. If you understand that some people won't like it and you're prepared to deal with that, go for it. Personally, I'd say using a fictional terrorist group as a villain is fine. I do it myself. Using a fictional terrorist group that you've tied to a real one is sketchy. If the group is inspired by Hydra and Cobra, draw off of that more than off of ISIS.
Controversy just means likely to cause mass discussion. Which as a writer I think it's a necessary thing. You don't have to be insensitive to the current events surrounding this topic, but writing about it from the other perspective should certainly not be a taboo. In a lot of cases it can be refreshing to read something from the other side of things, it gives us an insight that we would rarely otherwise get.
I'd be careful if you were to do any research for this on the internet. Not sure if this still happens, but years ago when I was still at university (so some time between 2005-2009) there was a case of a PhD student writing his thesis on terrorist groups and the police arrested him on suspicion of terrorism, all because he was researching ETA: found the article. Seems it was a masters student. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/research-into-islamic-terrorism-led-to-police-response/402125.article And a more detailed wiki page into the incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_Two
So I'm guessing that all of my research into bank robbery, the weight of body parts (hands, arms, legs...), and Jazz music isn't going to look so good?
Didn't Tom Clancy drop a nuke on Washington, DC at some point? And then there's 24, which wasn't to my taste, but I think that the basic terrorism concept is so far into "OK" that it may have been done to death. No pun intended.
Here's a life tip for everyone: whenever you find yourself tempted to say "no pun intended," just say "pun intended" already.
Depicting terrorism is not controversial. If anything, it's mainstream. What could the American government like more than more media depicting their favourite enemy? The perfect distraction from their issues, the perfect thing to distract from their previous actions in the middle east? Now, trying to really take the character's sympathetically, as true-believers fighting for what they believe, could be. And too much historical relevance could be deemed insensitive to terrorism victims. But doing terrorists is not at all going to be a problem by itself.
. Look Marvel did it. They went pretty far into the elements of other terrorists that are the inspiration for this version of the character. It's really not a problem. And yes, I really like Ben Kingsley in that role. (WARNING: Contains some small spoilers)