Ivan Brandon was born in New York City in 1976 to Cuban immigrants. He has an older brother, two younger brothers and a younger sister.

Brandon's earliest exposure to comics included Marvel Comics publications in the early 1980s, such as Daredevil, Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man and Secret Wars that were passed down to him from his older brother. He has named Bill Sienkiewicz's work on New Mutants and Frank Miller's work on Daredevil and Elektra as having had an influential impact on him.

Brandon studied art under David Mazzucchelli, and says he made his first comics with him at age 10. He later became friends with fellow creators such as Goran Parlov and Eduardo Risso.

April 2009 saw the debut of Brandon's Viking, an ongoing series from Image Comics about two young criminal brothers attempting to work their way up the criminal food chain based in the Viking era. Brandon has explained that he was inspired by period dramas such as Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal, and that the parallels he perceived between Viking history and organized crime inspired the series.

The following month, DC Comics debuted Escape, written by Brandon.

Jeff Amano gave Brandon the reins to Amano's creation, Gene-Fusion. Brandon also wrote the two-book prequel Terminator 3: Before the Rise.

Brandon's other work includes freelance projects such as Ganglords of Chinatown with Mike Hawthorne and Rick Remender, and creator-owned projects such The Cross Bronx, a supernatural crime story, produced with Michael Oeming, a project with Miles Gunter and Andy MacDonald called NYC Mech and a story with Becky Cloonan and others, called Self-Titled.

Brandon has also edited the anthology 24Seven.