Van Sciver was born in Utah, and grew up in South New Jersey. He decided on a career in the comic book field after seeing The Movie as a child, but read comics "mostly just... for the pictures, until John Byrne's "Man of Steel" in 1986, the first time he really started reading the books.

He was involved in art in various forms before his comics work, speaking in 2005, he said:

Van Sciver cites Chris Claremont and Jon Bogdanove's Fantastic Four vs. X-Men as a strong influence, telling a group of fans at Comic-Con International that:

"I'm trying in my own comics to recreate the feeling I got from that four-issue miniseries."

Van Sciver's entry into the comics industry came when he was 19 years old, and created "a horrible little character called Cyberfrog." Cyberfrog was written and drawn by Van Sciver, and published by Hall of Heroes, and later, Harris Comics. He has contributed to a number of high-profile series for both Marvel Comics, and primarily DC Comics. Titles include his own Cyberfrog and such titles as New X-Men, Rebirth, Green Lantern, and Superman/Batman.

Van Sciver's first major work for DC Comics was on the series Impulse, with writer Todd Dezago. Van Sciver recalled that Paul Kupperberg offered him a fill-in role on the series, with the chance to try and save the title. Van Sciver recalls, "we did save the book for a while."

Many of Van Sciver's most notable works have been produced in collaboration with writer Geoff Johns. Van Sciver feels he may have had a "bad influence" on the writer, working with him early on on the superhero-horror one-shot Iron Heights. The artist described his approach on the issue as "taking well known, maybe well worn superhero concepts, make them scary, make them upsetting in some way."

For Marvel, Van Sciver produced several issues of Grant Morrison's New X-Men, starting as a two-issues-per-year fill-in artist for regular series artist Frank Quitely. Initially intending to also work on an X-Men miniseries with Johns while producing his small yearly commitment to Morrison's story, Van Sciver soon found himself asked to produce more and more issues, until a third 'regular' artist (Igor Kordey) was brought on board, and the Johns-penned miniseries was abandoned.

Van Sciver is fond of inserting hidden elements in some of his work, including the incorporation of the word "sex" onto almost every page of New X-Men #118.

In 2004, Johns and Van Sciver brought Hal Jordan back to the DC Universe as Earth's main Green Lantern officer in the six-issue miniseries Rebirth, before the duo re-launched the Green Lantern title itself with a new volume. Van Sciver's work on the Green Lantern mythos helped explain and retcon many elements of the Green Lantern story which some fans and writers found nonsensical, such as the reasons of the power ring uselessness against the color yellow, and Hal Jordan's transformation into the supervillain Parallax.

In 2007, Johns, Van Sciver, Dave Gibbons and Ivan Reis produced the eleven-issue Sinestro Corps War across the two Green Lantern monthly titles, the second part of a mooted trilogy of Green Lantern tales. This story launched the Sinestro Corps, the antithesis of the Green Lantern Corps, led by rogue Green Lantern Sinestro and his Qwardian yellow power ring. The series set the stage for a complete overhaul of the Lantern Corps, and introduced the emotional spectrum of power which provides energy to many different color variations of power ring.

In 2008, Van Sciver was the guest artist on an issue of Justice League of America (vol. 2) #20 (June 2008). Van Sciver's 2009 work includes the six-issue mini-series Rebirth, and variant covers for the Green Lantern and DC Comics event, The Blackest Night.

In the Fall of 2006 Ethan was contacted by Kip Winger and asked to pencil the cover art for Winger's fourth studio album. The cover art was sold as a poster called Guardian of Freedom.

Comics work (interior pencil art) includes:

DC

• Batman/Catwoman: Trail of the Gun, miniseries, #1-2 (2004)
• Flash: Iron Heights, one-shot (2001)
• Rebirth, miniseries, #1-6 (2009)
• Flash 80-Page Giant #1 (Impulse) (1998)
• Rebirth, miniseries, #1-6 (2004—05)
• Green Lantern, vol. 4, #1 (4-pages only), #4-5, 9; Secret Files & Origins 2005 (2005—06), #25 (along with Ivan Reis) (2008)
• Hawkman, vol. 4, #13 (2003)
• Justice Leagues: JL?, one-shot (2001)
• Justice League of America, vol. 4, #0 (1-page only), #20 (2006)
• Superman/Batman #28-30 (2006)

Marvel

• Wolverine #179 (2002)
• New X-Men #117-118, 123, 133 (2001—02)

Van Sciver is married and resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. He and his wife Sharis have a son, Hunter. He has mentioned in interview that he is "obsessed by historical tragedies."He is also a notable autograph collector.

Van Sciver's younger brother is the underground comic artist Noah Van Sciver.